


The art of longing

by itsallAvengers



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, But Not between Steve & Tony, But also, Eventual Happy Ending, Getting Together, Hurt Steve Rogers, Hurt Tony Stark, Infidelity, Kidnapping, Lots Of Pent Up Sexual Frustration Here, M/M, Mutual Pining, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Obligatory Hospital Waiting Scene Because No Fic is Complete Without One, Oblivious Tony Stark, Pining Steve Rogers, Protective Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers Feels, The Avengers Are Good Bros, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-22 09:52:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 63,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17057585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsallAvengers/pseuds/itsallAvengers
Summary: Steve's used to missing his shot. To being too late, too scared, and losing everything. But he really did think that this time, with Tony, something could work.Then Tony meets Mark. He's cool and charming, he's a scientist and he'sperfectfor a man like Tony Stark.And suddenly Steve...Well. Steve just doesn't have a place anymore





	The art of longing

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! So this is my terrible pining steve fic that i wrote in like two weeks and is kinda garbage but *shrugs* here it is anyway pls have fun watching Steve be miserable for like 56k!

Steve hadn’t always loved Tony.

 

In fact, there had been a time when it would have been easier to say he outright hated the man. They’d not made the best first impressions with one another, and it had been difficult to overcome their original problems for a good few weeks afterward. They’d clashed a lot. Argued over everything. Steve had been close to leaving the tower so many times because he’d been sure he would never be able to learn how to live with a man like Tony Stark.

But it had happened, in the end.

They’d _both_ learned. About one another, about how to co-exist without tearing eachother’s heads off. Tony had learned to buy the morning paper for Steve, and Steve in turn had learned how Tony took his coffee. They’d become tentative friends. The rest of the team were so often away that Tony and Steve hadn’t had a choice, really. It was either that or loneliness. And after everything that had happened to the both of them, loneliness was never the fun option. Steve, at the time, would rather have sat and done nothing but argue with Tony for three hours than to sit on his own and look at the wall of his bedroom. At least when he was shouting at Tony, there was a voice that shouted back. When Steve was alone, he became staunchly aware of quite _how_ _very_ alone it was. And so instead, he’d gone to Tony. And then Tony had gone to him, sometimes. And then they’d found eachother, even when the nights weren’t so bad and they didn’t desperately require the company. It stopped being a necessity and started being something Steve was happy, even excited to do. Tony was vibrant- he was the future, but not in the terrifying way that Steve had seen him as before. Tony was knowledge and power, and Steve learned so much when they talked. Tony was just… he was great. And hey, he could still be a complete asshole when he felt like it, sure. They could argue at the tops of their lungs when they felt like it, and sometimes the things Tony did made him want to put his fist through a wall and promise himself that whatever he did, he would not get too close to Tony Stark.

 But it had happened, in the end.

Steve hadn’t even meant it. But Tony had very quickly managed to insert himself into Steve’s life and take a hold that would not leave. The weeks became months, the Avengers grew stronger and better, and so did Steve’s friendship with Tony. He just… he _got_ Steve. He understood. He was the complete polar opposite in every single way and it just _worked_ , it worked so well that Steve couldn’t imagine the future without him in it. He took Tony to baseball games. Tony took him to science conferences. They had inside jokes that Fury totally fucking hated, because they usually came out during briefings and it drove the Director nuts, and they could usually either be found together or at the very least, know where the other had gone. He knew Tony’s routine like the back of his hand. He could find the right shade for Tony’s eyes and draw them totally from memory.

And then one morning, when Tony had knocked shoulders with him and smiled, sleepy and fond, Steve had felt something swoop inexplicably in his chest.

That had been the beginning. Or maybe not. Maybe it had been the beginning at- well- at the very beginning, when Steve had gotten up in his face and wanted nothing more than to put his hands on him, shove him up against the wall and _make_ _him_ shut up. Or a little later on, when Steve had just moved in and had meticulously clocked every move Tony made with his hands, because they were so very beautiful and dextrous and it was all he could do not to grab them from the air and inspect them like they were art.

Now Steve thought about it, the bumping-of-the-shoulders had probably only been the catalyst, rather than the spark that started it all.

Steve had learned fairly quickly after that what it had meant. From that point on, he’d found himself unable to look away when Tony did something that Steve found attractive. He could be reaching for a damn coffee cup, and his shirt would ride up his hips a little and Steve would just _stare_ , so obvious and rude, and he’d have to force his eyes back down to whatever he was doing rather than just watch as Tony did something mundane. He found the swooping sensations became common; especially when he made Tony laugh, or when they touched, or when Tony was overtired and affectionate or prickly and short-tempered or just… just anything, really.

And it was a bad idea. Terrible, really. Steve knew that. Of course he did, he wasn’t stupid. Steve was… well, _Steve_. A relic of the past, and something that a man like Tony Stark would not want in a million years. Tony could have anyone, he moved from person to person quickly because they didn’t mean a thing, and it wasn’t _bad_ , it just… it wasn’t ever something Steve would want for them.

And either way, Tony just didn’t care for Steve like that. They were best friends. And Tony never flirted with him. He flirted with everyone else, but not Steve. Which was fine. It was just the way things were. Steve could live with that. He just made sure to promise himself never to fall in love. Never to let himself get that deep into it, keep his emotions in check and try and push it away. Tony was his friend, his partner. Loving him would only finish in disaster.

 

But…. Well.

That had happened in the end, too.

 

 

 

_

 

 

 

 

Bruce poked him across the dinner table and Steve looked up over the rim of his paper, cocking in eyebrow in question

“What’s your favourite colour?” He asked, and when Steve looked at him in confusion Bruce just held up a set of knitting needles. “Christmas gifts,” he explained, giving the needles a tap.

“Oh,” Steve said, smiling and then trying to recall, “it’s… uhh-“

“Red,” Tony declared as he came into the room, making a beeline straight for the coffee, “seriously, Steve, how come I remember your favourites better than you do?”

Steve just shrugged, looking at his back with a fond smile. “I dunno- maybe because that’s not _actually_ my favourite, you just said it was because ‘red is the coolest colour, and anyway I’ve already dibbsed gold’?”

Tony laughed absently. “Oh yeah, true. Hey, where’s my-“ he turned, spotting his favourite mug already on the table, topped up with fresh coffee just the way he liked it. Tony’s smile lit up the room, and then it got turned on Steve the way it did every morning that he made the other man coffee. “God, you’re the best,” he said with a sigh, leaning across the table to grab it.

Steve watched him and then rolled his eyes. “Remember that when you’re complaining at me for dragging you out of the workshop tonight, yeah?”

Tony pouted. “Mean.”

“Necessary.”

“Disagree.”

“Shame.”

Both of them laughed, and Tony patted Steve on the shoulder as he left the kitchen again, inevitably to head back down to his workshop. He’d been focused on his project for a good three days now, and Steve was pretty sure the man had to be surviving purely on coffee and fumes by that point. Getting him to rest was like trying to persuade Thor not to summon lightning indoors: hopeless.

Didn’t mean Steve wouldn’t try, though. Because he was a good friend like that.

He watched Tony’s back with a small smile on his face as the man hurried off like a jittery bunny, hopping back down the stairs in excitement to get back to his work. Steve rolled his eyes and then shook his head, aiming it at no-one in particular. Seeing Tony in the morning was always a nice little boost to his day.

“You know, you could just ask him out.”

Steve blinked and looked at Bruce, who was watching him with a look of mild amusement on his face. He tried to keep his face from blushing and hastily tamped down on the sappy smile that he knew he was wearing. “What? Why would I-“

“-Because you’re completely head over heels for Tony and the whole team knows it?” Bruce told him, cocking his head to the side and then raising his eyebrows sympathetically.

Steve almost tried to deny it again, but in the end, he just sighed. He’d figured that the team had probably caught onto it a while ago. They all lived in close proximity, after all- and they all saw the looks that Steve only ever showed behind Tony’s back.

“Don’t tell him,” was all Steve said, looking back down to his paper glumly. He knew he was going to get a talk now. He didn’t want a talk. Talks like this rarely ever went well for him.

“I don’t intend to,” Bruce said with a shrug, “that’s your job. I do think that you’d be surprised by what you hear in response, though.”

Steve just huffed. “I doubt it,” was all he said in the end, “Tony is… we’re just friends.”

“Yeah, and so were me and Thor,” Bruce replied with a roll of his eyes, “and I mean, I’m not saying go and lie naked on Tony’s bed like Thor did for me. I feel like that holds appeal for a very niche audience-“ Steve raised his eyebrows and looked over at Bruce, who just coughed nonchalantly before continuing, “-but anyway. You won’t ever know ‘til you try. And Tony… well. He doesn’t treat anyone like the way he treats you, let’s just put it that way.”

Steve didn’t respond, because he wasn’t really sure how to, and Bruce didn’t say anything else. He just ate his toast and read through one of his books in silence, oblivious to the way Steve had fallen off the planet and into his own little world right in front of him. A world where Bruce’s words were true, and Tony felt the same.

He snapped back before he could get too lost in it. He was very good at doing that. For all of his life, Steve had compartmentalised the shit out of things. It was easier than getting hurt, he figured. And this was just another example of many.

Steve was fine like this. He really was.

And anyway- it would be winter soon, and winter meant Christmas. Winter also meant lots of shopping and panic over gift-buying, and so Steve was fairly sure that would take up a considerable chunk of his time. And that meant less time thinking about Tony, which was great.

That being said, though, he did want to make sure that Tony got a really good present this year. It was their second Christmas together, and during the first they hadn’t really been… you know… on speaking terms. So this year, Steve wanted to make it special. He had a list of potential ideas that was growing steadily, and he was going to need some help cutting it down- maybe from Pepper, she knew him pretty well. Or Rhodey.

Okay. So maybe he would still be thinking about Tony. A little bit.

Steve sighed and looked down at his paper. His shoulder still felt warm, from the brief second in which Tony had touched him.

 

 

 

 

_

 

 

 

 

Here’s the thing.

Steve knew that, in the grand scheme of things, he wasn’t what Tony wanted. He was a fairly boring guy, he wasn’t overly intelligent, and his dress sense was appalling on a good day. Tony never flirted with him and he never gave any implication that the feelings were reciprocated in any way. So Steve knew that fantasizing about things was just counterproductive and painful.

But Steve, at heart, was a romantic. And he couldn’t stop himself.

They’d be sat on the couch watching movies, and Tony would lean his head against Steve’s shoulder and close his eyes and a million different scenarios would just _explode_ in his mind. Scenes where he would shift and push Tony’s chin upward with his fingertips, push their mouths together softly- and Tony would be sleepy, lethargic, but he’d kiss with a soft aura of affection that let Steve know he was loved right back. Or maybe one where it would be the opposite, and Tony was the one who initiated- what started out as a simple place to rest his head becoming the beginning of a trail of kisses, nervous at first, but getting braver as he got closer and closer to Steve’s mouth, where they met in the middle and then quickly went from tentative to frantic. Steve dreamed vividly, in colour and sound and perfect quality- it was his blessing and his curse. He constructed his very own torture device in his dreams about the other man, and then used it over and over again, because he really just hated himself that much, apparently.

 

But sometimes- just sometimes- there would be a blip in the radar. An event that Steve didn’t really know how to wave away and excuse.

 

Like that night one Tuesday, when Tony had gotten back from a gala. He’d been pretty drunk, but in a happy sort of way, not the worrying kind that made Steve’s stomach roil and his chest tighten. Anyway- he had come back through the elevator at 3 in the morning, his tie loose around his slender neck and the top buttons of his shirt undone, and Steve had been the only one still awake to see him. And when Tony had clocked him, his face had just… lifted.

 _“Steve,”_ he’d said, and it had just been one word, one syllable, but for some reason Tony had just put so much into it that Steve hadn’t quite known how to respond to it. It had felt, just for a moment, like he was Tony’s entire universe. Which was silly enough as it was, it was only a fucking name- but like Steve had said earlier, he couldn’t help it. Ideas took off in his brain and nestled themselves there, whether he wanted them to or not.

But Tony had been looking at him so reverently. And when he’d stepped forward, his hand had gone straight to Steve’s face- not his shoulder, not his arm. He’d settled his fingers lightly against the bone running through Steve’s jaw and then just looked up at him, a tired smile on his face as he’d said, “seeing you is always the best part of my day, you know”.

That alone might not have been enough. Steve could put it down to alcohol or tiredness, and when Tony had woken up in the morning, tucked neatly into his own bed with a glass of water and some aspirin by his dresser, he hadn’t mentioned it to Steve. It could have so easily been shucked off, if Steve had just been normal. Had just treated their relationship as what it was: a friendship.

But then there had been the next thing. When Tony had given him that stupid haircut.

Steve should have just gone to the barbers. But he’d been busy all week, and then he’d been in the kitchen and the scissors had just been right there, and he’d just thought, what the hell? It hadn’t meant that much to him. Only some hair, after all. But Tony had walked in just as he was about to trim the first piece, and he’d screamed- actually fucking _screamed_ in horror.

“What do you think you are _doing_?” Tony squeaked, stumbling forward and dropping his briefcase haphazardly.

“Uhh,” Steve paused, “I’m… I’m cutting my hair?”

Which, apparently, had been a terrible answer. Tony had looked at Steve as if he’d just said he was deciding to join the HYDRA revolution or something, and before he’d even been able to fight his case, the other man had been herding him into one of the chairs and then pulling the kitchen scissors out of his hands, muttering about old-fashioned war idiots with no common sense. While Steve had just sat there, confused and slightly scared, Tony had cursed at him a few times in a language that sounded like Italian and then hurried off to the nearest bathroom. When he’d come back, it was with a proper pair of hair scissors, apparently.

And then he’d started cutting Steve’s fucking hair for him.

Steve had tried to say no in the beginning, for the sake of his own sanity. The thought of Tony putting his hands all over Steve’s hair was just the sort of torture that he reserved for late at night, when there was an easy way to relieve said torture all by himself. But Tony just wasn’t having any of it. And then the one time Steve tried to move away Tony had grabbed his shoulder and pulled him back, his fingers brushing over the sensitive part under Steve’s jaw, and he hadn’t been brave enough to try again for fear of doing something truly awful, like moaning.

So he’d sat there. And Tony had cut his fucking hair with his stupid fucking hair scissors, talking about fucking Stark Industries while running his fucking fingers all over Steve’s fucking head. And Steve… God, it had been all he could do to sit there quietly and keep his eyes open. Tony had such nice hands. And every touch on Steve’s scalp had just felt so fucking amazing.

But the worst part- the worst part that had started what was soon to be a complete fucking mess- had been at the very end.

Tony had finished, and he’d put the scissors down and Steve had thought the torture was finally over, but then when he’d tried to stand up Tony had moved in front of him and pushed him back. And then he’d leaned down, got right up in Steve’s face, and purposely ran his fingers through the sides of Steve’s hair, tugging it gently.

Objectively, Steve had known what he was doing. Checking to see that the lengths were all even and he wasn’t going to send Captain America out into the world with a wonky trim. But when his face was roughly three and a half centimetres away, his eyes so deeply concentrated on Steve as his hands had pulled on his hair- well. Objectivity had become a hell of a lot harder.

Steve had just stayed still as a statue. It was the only thing he could trust himself to do. He’d looked at Tony’s eyes and mapped out all of the things he’d never noticed before, because Tony had never been close enough to see them, and Tony’s hands had paused in his hair, just for a single second as he’d stared at Steve right back.

And then he’d licked his lips.

It was _nothing_. Absolutely _fucking nothing_ \- just a very human, very normal thing to do. Another second of silence later and Tony had pulled back, coughing a little and nodding firmly at the job well done, but that tiny part in Steve had already been pulled into the abyss of that terrible feeling:

Hope.

And that- more than anything- had been Steve’s downfall.

 

 

 

 

_

 

 

 

 

Once it had started, it was hard to stop.

Steve would see it in the way that Tony would look at him, late at night when the rest of the world was asleep and it was just the two of them, alone together and sipping at coffee as they attempted not to think of the reason for their being awake. He felt it in Tony’s touch; how his fingers lingered for what felt like just a second too long against his bare skin as he passed Steve by, and tasted it in the air when Tony would stare at him dressed up in his army uniform, readying to head out to the next charity gala.

Steve’s imagination took it and ran as fast as it could, before his common sense could possibly catch up and tell it to just let the damned thing go. He just… he _knew_ that he’d be so good for Tony, if he was given a chance. They fit together. Steve understood him, and Tony understood Steve- maybe better than anyone else still on this earth. They already worked well as a team on the field, they were best of friends off it, so what would be so bad about wondering what it could be like to move up to the next stage? To let himself wonder how it would feel to kiss Tony at night and wake up to him every morning, to share everything, to be… to just be happy.

And he knew that it wasn’t his right, to decide who and who wouldn’t be good for Tony. Steve could think all he wanted, but at the end of the day it was Tony’s choice and Tony’s choice alone.

But sometimes it was just nice, to imagine how it would feel to have Tony love him in the same way that Steve loved Tony.  
It was even nicer to think that maybe, just maybe, Tony eventually would.

 

 

 

 

_

 

 

 

 

“Clint, don’t you dare.”

Across the kitchen, the man turned to Steve and pouted in annoyance. “Just one little forkful,” he asked, hands wandering over to the steaming bowl on the counter. He was stopped by a flying apple hitting his hand away, and turned to Steve with a very sour look on his face. “Oh, come on, man.”

Steve was about to respond but was interrupted by the sounds of the whole team piling into the kitchen, back from their trip to the store to get more groceries. They’d been gone a good few hours, so Steve didn’t really want to think about the kinds of things they’d come home with. Usually it was Steve’s job, but, well… he’d been busy this morning.

“Something smells good,” Natasha commented, poking her head over Steve’s shoulder and looking at what he was cooking, “are you making lunch for all of us?”

“No,” Steve told her, “just Tony. He’s. Uh- he’s sick. I thought a healthy meal might make him feel a little better.”

She looked at him in confusion, glancing around to the kitchen counter. “But there are five bowls,” she told him quizzically, and Steve blushed as he glanced over to them.

“I couldn’t quite remember the recipe my ma used to make,” Steve told her sheepishly, “so, uh, I’m just doing every variation that I can remember.”

Behind him, he heard someone that sounded very much like Thor try to stifle his laughter. “So does that mean we can get the reject bowls?” Bruce asked, picking up one of the closest ones hopefully.

Steve flipped around and snatched it back. “No, wait, I’m not sure which one is the best one yet,” he explained quickly, “once I’ve finished making this batch and then taste-tested them all, you can have the rest.”

The whole team looked at him with varying expressions on their faces. Mostly amusement. Some pity. Steve just tried to tamp down on his blush as he turned back to the stove. This was normal. Ma had used to make him sick-day meals all the time.

“This is not normal,” Thor declared, because he was a bastard, “at least, not to me it isn’t. Bruce, love, you are human- is this normal?”

“No,” Bruce shook his head, “no, this is not normal.”

Steve turned to them, exasperated. “Don’t start.”

“We’re not starting,” Natasha raised her hands defensively as she tamped down on a grin, “we’re just observing, that’s all.” She wandered forward and then knocked her shoulder with Steve’s, before leaning up and kissing him quickly on the cheek. “It’s cute,” she told him fondly, “I wish someone would make five batches of lunch for _me.”_

Steve smiled tiredly, rubbing his face. “Tomorrow, it’s your turn,” he told her, “I promise.”

The team settled around in various areas of the kitchen, pulling the bags up onto the counter and then beginning to unload them all. Steve watched out of the corner of his eye as Bruce and Thor talked quietly with one another, Thor laughing as Bruce pulled a face and then leaned tiredly into the swell of Thor’s shoulder. They’d been together for a while by that point; firm and steady, the team’s constant if there ever was one. Steve loved that they were happy together- but sometimes he couldn’t help but feel an ache whenever he saw the two of them. They had everything that Steve longed for, and it just looked so easy. So reachable.

“Hey Steve,” Clint said, hopping up onto the counter next to him and then leaning back, “you thinking of ballsing up and asking Tony out soon? Because I’ve got a bet going between coworkers and I would really like to not lose a hundred dollars to someone as sweaty as Shirk, thank you very much.”

Steve frowned, turning the chicken in the pan. “I don’t think it’s very professional to make bets about my nonexistant love-life,” he commented absently.

“Oh, as if the entirety of SHIELD hasn’t got an illegal betting pool going on at this point,” was all Clint responded with, rolling his eyes, “everyone who has seen the two of you knows that it’s only a matter of time before one of you jumps the other’s bones in the nearest store-cupboard. Oh, that reminds me- don’t fuck anywhere in SHIELD if you want privacy. Some of the tecchies are so dedicated to winning that they’ve installed cameras in all the storerooms to catch any activity. The amount of money that’s being placed on this is off the charts, and they don’t wanna lose.”

Steve made a face. “That’s… so illegal,” he said, “so so very illegal.”

In response, Clint just shrugged and then dived in, snatching a slice of chicken before Steve could stop him. He popped it into his mouth and then groaned happily. “God, how come you never cook for _us_ this nicely?” He asked accusingly.

“Because he’s not hopelessly in love with any of us,” Bruce said, voice muffled from Thor’s shoulder.

Steve opened his mouth and widened his eyes, looking around, “God, I’m not- can you shut up, I’m…” unable to find a decent enough excuse, he just flipped them all off and scowled, “if any of you mention that when Tony is in the room I swear to God-“

“-You’ll thank us profusely because it’ll mean you two will finally be on the same page and able to admit your feelings for one another?” Natasha cut in smoothly, eyeing Steve with an amused look.

Steve just shook his head, laughing somewhat bitterly. “Yeah. Sure. That.”

He felt the team exchanging looks with one another behind him, but ignored them all in favour of dishing up the next batch of food. He was pretty sure that this one was perfect this time, which was nice. He hoped that Tony liked it.

“Steve,” Thor said somewhat quizzically, “you do realise that Tony is just as crazy about you as you are for him, right?”

Steve just huffed, shaking his head. “I’m pretty sure he’s not, Thor,” he told the God with a dry smile, moving to serve up the chicken with the rice that he’d already cooked on the side.

The whole team collectively scoffed at him, and he paused, looking up. They were all just staring at him, equal parts amused and pitying. “What?” he asked, “it’s true.”

“If you actually think that, then you really are hopeless,” Natasha said, shaking her head, “he hides it better than you, but believe me- he’d move mountains to see you smile.”

Steve just sighed. “It’s not the same thing.” Which was true- Tony cared for him, Steve wasn’t completely oblivious- but not in the same way. He was… he was at least 99% sure of that. But when he turned and saw the way the team were looking at him, he felt that number drop a little. Solid 80%, perhaps. Maybe- maybe 75%.

Steve bit his lip. The team wouldn’t just say it for fun, right? And like, two of them were spies. They evaluated emotions for a damn living. Was Steve just being dense here?

No. No, he wasn’t. Tony was… Tony was so out of his league, it wasn’t even funny. Tony was experienced and charming and he flirted like he breathed. Steve was the polar opposite of- well, of all of that. Tony would never want someone like him. Nuh uh.

But… maybe there was a little substance to what the team was saying. He did trust them and their judgements, as annoying as they could sometimes be about it. And they were right- sometimes even Steve couldn’t help but wonder if maybe, just maybe, that look he saw sometimes in Tony’s eye was something a little _more_ than just affection.

But the crux of the matter was this: Steve was just too scared to do anything about it. Even if it was true, Tony was just… he was too good to mess up with. Steve was terrified of getting something wrong and just ruining everything.

He couldn’t afford to do that. Not with the best thing that had happened to him in this century. He would rather keep Tony as a friend than lose him as a lover.

“I’m gonna go check on him,” Steve mumbled quietly, taking the perfect bowl and then waving a hand to the rest, “you can all eat that if you want.”

Immediately the team complied, each of them grabbing a bowl and then fighting over the remaining cutlery that wasn’t dirty. Steve left them with a huff and a fond roll of his eyes, turning the corner and then hurrying up the stairs three at a time. Tony had been asleep, last time Steve had checked in on him, but he figured that by this point in the day just getting him to stay in bed and rest was going to be a supreme challenge. Tony was not one for sitting still.

He knocked gently on the door and then waited for the sound of approval before turning the handle and poking his head around the door. Tony was, amazingly, where Steve had left him a few hours ago: still curled up on his bed under a literal mountain of blankets, the only thing visible being his face and a single set of fingers that was holding his blanket-cape together. His nose was red and his eyes puffy, and he definitely looked like a man with the flu. Steve smiled at him. It wasn’t a look he’d ever thought he could find endearing, and yet here they were. “Hey,” he said quietly, stepping in further and then waving the bowl, “I bought sustenance.”

Tony looked up at him quizzically, and then his eyes fell on the bowl. “Is that… coffee?” He asked hopefully, his voice croaky and nasal.

“Yeah, there weren’t any cups so I decided to just stick it in a bowl and make do,” Steve told him, deadpan. When Tony cracked a tired smile and shut his eyes, Steve took the opportunity to lean down and then press it into his hands swiftly.

Tony took a sniff, and then his eyes opened again, peering down at it. “Mmm,” he said, “that actually smells nice. I might leave it a while though, I’m not particularly-“ he stopped at the sight of Steve’s unimpressed face, and then just sighed, “-or I could just eat it now, I guess.”

“Good answer,” Steve told him with a nod, “you have to eat to keep your body healthy while it fights off the disease.”

Tony lifted his eyebrows. “Okay then, Doctor Rogers, damn,” he muttered, and then yelped in dismay when Steve sat down on the bed next to him and shoved him in the shoulder, “hey hey hey, I thought you were being nice to me ‘cuz I’m sick!”

Tony was pouting at him like a child, and Steve just shrugged. “Not that nice, apparently.” He looked down pointedly at the bowl still in Tony’s lap and then raised his eyebrows. “I want to see you eat that,” he told the other man firmly, “now.”

Tony groaned. “I hate being sick.”

“And I feel very sorry for you. Now eat your damn lunch, Stark.” He crossed his arms and glared at Tony as menacingly as he could until Tony eventually caved, pulling the fork to his mouth with a roll of his eyes. When he actually tasted it, however, his annoyed look fell right off his face, and he groaned in delight.

“Shit,” he said, “that’s good. Since when did you cook like this?”

Steve looked down bashfully. “One of my mom’s old recipes,” he explained with a shrug, “it’s about the only thing I can cook well.” In that moment, his stomach grumbled particularly loudly, and he realised that he had accidentally skipped out on his own lunch whilst so busy preparing Tony’s. Plus, the chicken really did smell good. Steve was only human.

Tony raised an eyebrow and cocked his head. Then he lifted a forkful of food up and waved it tantalizingly in Steve’s face. “Wanna share?” He asked with a smile, “it’s great, I will admit, but I feel like if I eat all of this then I may throw up.”

Steve shook his head, resisting the urge to blush as Tony held out the fork. It felt too intimate. You didn’t… you didn’t eat food off someone else’s fork unless you were in a relationship, right? Or at least, you didn’t unless you _wanted_ to be in one. That was how it always went in movies. And Steve couldn’t let Tony know that he wanted to be in one, so he couldn’t say yes.

“Nah,” he tried, shaking his head, “it’s for you-” but Tony was hardly even listening, pushing the fork forward with a grin on his face and then following Steve’s head as it tried to back away. Eventually, he had no choice; he rolled his eyes and then took the damn forkful, making sure to be fast about it. Nothing seductive there. Tony would probably just _laugh_ if he tried to be fucking seductive, let’s be honest.

But Tony just seemed happy, watching Steve with his puffy eyes and red nose as he swallowed the mouthful and then looked down, knowing that he was blushing but unable to stop himself. God, it was a miracle that Tony hadn’t caught on to his feelings yet. Or maybe he had, and was just amusing himself watching Steve stumble around so helplessly.

Ouch. That one was a little mortifying to think about.

“You okay there, Steve?” Tony asked, and Steve blinked as he looked back up, realising he’d been quiet for a little too long. He smiled and nodded, waving a hand dismissively.

“Yeah,” Steve said with an easy nod, “yeah, I should just- I should probably leave you to it, huh? Are you gonna be down for dinner, or would you like me to bring that up for you as well?”

For a second, Tony’s face fell a little, and he looked back down at his bowl with a rapid set of blinks. “Oh,” he said, “oh, uhh- I can probably make it down. Not sure if I’ll be hungry though.”

Steve nodded, sliding off the bed easily. A big part of him didn’t want to leave- Tony was sick, and Steve wanted to be there to just look after him, plain and simple. He was a carer by nature- learned it from his mom, and it didn’t help that it was Tony who was ill. That just made the protective streak in him flare up further, higher, stronger and faster.

“You can stay and entertain me for a little longer, if you want,” Tony asked him with a shrug, and Steve turned to him in surprise, “I mean, it’s pretty boring up here, just watching stupid TV. And if I’m not appropriately stimulated then I may just find myself going back to my workshop to try and continue-“

“Don’t you dare,” Steve waggled a finger at him, “not in this state, you’re not. This morning you could hardly even stand.

“Well then,” Tony reached out, extending a hand from within his blanket-cape and then winding it into Steve’s shirt, tugging him back, “stay here. I’m _bored_ , Steve. And you’re not boring. So really, it’s your duty.”

Steve looked down at the hand grabbing on to his T-shirt. “I- I really don’t think that’s how it works,” he said, already stepping forward.

And this was the problem. Because Steve could be a friend, and he could be a damn good one- and that was clearly all this was. This was Tony wanting company, being his usual self, just asking for Steve to spend some time with him. But to Steve, it was Tony pulling him forward onto his bed, sitting there in close proximity and knowing that it meant nothing to the other man.

And it _hurt._

But how could Steve say no? How could he look at Tony when the man asked him to do something that would make him happy, and ever deny him of it? Even when it made his heart ache, Steve would still do it. And he always would. Because _he was an idiot._

So he let Tony pull him back onto his bed, throw his head down over Steve’s legs and start talking about something mundane, like the characters in his TV show or something. Steve wasn’t sure he was listening to it. All he could feel was the weight of Tony’s head against his thighs, think of the distance between there and… other places, and then hate himself for it.

“Hey,” Tony said after a while, and Steve glanced down at him questioningly, “did I say thanks for the meal? I didn’t, did I? Sorry. Thank you, Steve. It was good of you.”

And his face was so earnest. His fingers squeezed down against Steve’s knee for a fraction of a second and he smiled, and all Steve could think after that was ‘worth it’.

He shrugged nonchalantly, leaning back. “Don’t worry about it,” he said, “it was nothing.”

 

 

 

 

_

 

 

 

 

The weeks of November flew by without much change. The Avengers still went out and kicked ass. Clint still ate his toast on the top of the fridge every morning because he was a fucking freak. Steve continued to love Tony, wholly and quietly, every day.

But there was one change. That was, that Steve had decided he was finally going to ask Tony out.

It was a step-by-step process, he’d figured. He needed to gauge a few things before he went in. He needed to know how he was going to make it perfect. And he absolutely needed to be sure that he wouldn’t ruin anything if he did. The prospect of that alone was terrifying, and Steve had spent many hours contemplating whether it was worth their friendship at all. But realistically, he knew that Tony wouldn’t stop being friends with him just because he found out that Steve wanted to date him. He just wasn’t like that, and pretending as if he was would just be rude. Tony was good. Tony wouldn’t laugh at him for it. Because, if Steve was being honest here, he thought he had a pretty good chance. All the rest of the team did, too, and they’d all been helping him plan it out for weeks.

He was terrified, yeah- but he was going to do it. Because his therapist kept telling him to try to ‘make himself happy’ and ‘do things that scare him’ or whatever, and he figured that this was probably a pretty apt example of both of those things.

By the time November came to a close, Steve felt like he was ready. He had it perfectly planned out and everything, and knew exactly what, when, where and how he was going to do things. He knew that Tony pretended as if he didn’t care, but really, the man was a romantic at heart, and so Steve intended to give him exactly that.

There was a gala on a Saturday night, and Steve was going to ask Tony to be his date. That was step one. And there, they could talk and chat and remove any possible awkwardness that might arise, and maybe they could dance, and it would be funny because Steve- well- Steve was a hopeless dancer. And Tony would laugh, but not in a mean way. It’d be fond and sweet, and he’d run through a few steps for Steve to follow, not even minding if Steve stepped on his toes. And then, once the gala was done, Steve was going to take Tony back to the tower and in initiate step two: romantic dinner date, carefully set up by the rest of the team whilst Steve and Tony had been out. Food would be ordered in, of course, because Steve had been serious when he’d mentioned knowing only one recipe- and anyway, steak from Carlucci’s was Tony’s favourite. It was a little old-fashioned, but Natasha had convinced him that Tony would like it, and so Steve had decided to stop off on the way home and buy Tony some of his favourite flowers too: pink peonies. Just a little bouquet, and one that he knew would go down well with the other man. He imagined how Tony would blush and stutter a little, before looking up at Steve and thanking him earnestly- perhaps even with a kiss.

Step three was still a little vague. He had to gauge the response to the other two steps before working out what to do for the end. Maybe going to the couch and watching a movie in between some making out. And although Steve longed very much to just sit Tony down and explore every inch of him, thoroughly, he also wanted to take it slow. So many people wanted Tony for very… _specific_ reasons, and Steve wanted to make sure Tony knew he wasn’t like that. He wanted Tony for more. And if that meant waiting until the third date to get in his pants, then Steve was more than happy to comply with that. It would just make everything all the more worthwhile in the end.

By the time it came to the day Steve was going to ask whether Tony was free that night (which he was, Steve had checked), he was actually excited. Completely fucking terrified, but still. Excited too.

“Remember to keep calm,” Natasha said as she smoothed down his collar absently, “don’t be weird. Act natural.”

“Or not,” Clint added helpfully, “I’m sure you could stand there naked and painted in yellow and he’d still want to smash.”

“Clint!” Natasha snapped, “unhelpful!”

“Actually, I think he’s being very helpful,” Thor perked up to the left of them, “Bruce tells me that my proposal for a relationship was not a traditional one, but it worked out very well in the end! In fact, we were having sex after the first-“

“I think what Thor is _trying to say,”_ Bruce clamped his hand over Thor’s mouth, cutting him off and blushing profusely as he looked at Steve, “is to just be yourself. Do what works best for you, and- and I’m sure Tony will appreciate it, whatever it may be.”

Clint laughed, patting Bruce heartily on the shoulder. “God, Bruce, I still can’t believe that worked for you, you complete freak.”

Bruce said nothing, just pushed his glasses further up his nose and then rolled his eyes at Thor when the other man beamed proudly. Steve swallowed down the urge to laugh at the image of himself trying to pull off what Thor did. For some reason, he got the feeling that it might not go down as well. Although, knowing Tony, it was actually hard to tell.

Not that Steve was going to, obviously. It had taken him months just to work up the courage to decide to ask Tony out on a date. Call him crazy, but he thought doing that whilst being naked would just make his nerves worse.

“Tony’s coming up in five,” Natasha declared, stepping back and turning to the team, “time for us to scram.”

“Awww,” Clint moaned as Nat took his arm and then began dragging him away, “but I wanna watch!”

“You’ll have plenty of time for that later,” he heard Natasha tell him as they all wandered off, leaving Steve alone in the kitchen gripping his mug of tea so tightly he thought he might just vaporize it.

He looked around and took a deep breath, blowing out through his mouth slowly and trying not to overthink it all. It wasn’t anything fancy- usually they went together as friends anyway. This time, Steve was just going to ask if Tony wanted to be his official date. It would be lowkey. Not too much pressure. That was what Steve was going for.

He just really, really hoped he didn’t mess up.

A few minutes passed, and then Steve heard the telltale sound of an elevator opening. It was still only early afternoon, and Tony had just gotten back from the early shift at his office, so he’d undoubtedly head straight into the kitchen for his next coffee fix. Steve spared a last look down, checking that his shirt wasn’t stained or he’d accidentally blacked out and stripped naked whilst waiting for Tony. Luckily, no stains were found and no Thor-Seduction-Techniques had been pulled, and Steve nodded to himself in approval just as Tony rounded the corner and saw him.

His face broke into a smile. “Hey Steve,” he said easily, dumping his briefcase on the side, “God, I have had the _longest_ fucking morning.”

Steve smiled back and then pushed Tony’s favourite cup across the table, filled with steaming coffee. Tony glanced down at for a moment, before sighing happily. “See?” He pointed at Steve, “this is why you’re my favourite.”

Steve looked down, feeling his cheeks warm. That was a good way to start this whole thing. “Good to know,” he said softly, fingers tapping nervously across the table. He opened his mouth, ready to start speaking, but they caught on his tongue as he watched Tony take the cup and just throw it all back, uncaring for the heat as he poured it all down his throat. Steve watched his neck intensely, losing all focus for a second. Jesus, some of the thoughts that sometimes flashed through his head when he was around Tony were downright indecent- and not ones he needed to be having right now.

 _Concentrate,_ he warned himself, pulling his eyes back down to the paper and swallowing again. He had no idea why he was making such a big deal out of this. He was a grown man, for Christ’s sake- he was _Captain America_. He ate fear for breakfast, and yet he couldn’t ask Tony Stark on a date without having a small panic attack every time the other man looked his way? Come on.

“So,” Steve said eventually, once he was sure that his voice would be steady enough to sound even vaguely normal, “uh, tonight.”

Tony paused, looking at him over the rim of his cup with a raised set of eyebrows. “Tonight,” he responded, nodding his head, “what about it?”

Steve coughed, looking down. Come on. Come on come on come on, _just say it._ “There’s… there’s that charity event tonight, that’s raising money for wounded soldiers, and I’ve been invited to it. And, uh. It’s for veterans only, but we can bring a plus one if we have one.” He felt like he was going to combust in on himself right there and then, and he fixed his eyes to the mug of tea in front of him to try and prevent Tony from seeing how red his face was. “I was… just wondering… maybe- uh- maybe you’d like to go with me? As my plus one?”

There. It was done. Now after this, there either success or failure. A solid answer, and one that Steve could use to either bring himself happiness or at least find him a reason to try moving on-

“Oh, sure,” Tony said easily, “I’d love to.”

Steve’s head shot up, looking at him in surprise. “I- really?” He asked, blinking rapidly.

“Definitely,” Tony told him with an earnest smile, “It sounds like fun. I take it the dress-code is a tux, right? I mean, unless you want me to pull out an army uniform I stole from Rhodey about a decade ago.”

Steve was briefly halted by the image of Tony wearing an army uniform, but managed to swallow back the urge to choke and turn it simply into a clearing of his throat. “Uh, yeah. Just a tux will be fine,” he said with a nod.

Tony put down the cup of coffee and then walked over to the sink, placing it there and patting Steve gently on the shoulder as he went. “Looking forward to it already,” he said playfully, and then walked out of the kitchen, undoubtedly heading to his workshop.

Steve just watched him, dumbstruck. He couldn’t even believe it had been that easy.

“Jesus,” he breathed to himself, letting his head rest against the cool granite surface, “Jesus, fuck.”

A date with Tony. An actual, real date with Tony.

Holy shit.

 

Of course, the next six hours were spent in a state of complete and total panic.

Steve dressed and redressed, then dressed again. He got Natasha to try and style his hair properly, and then immediately went in the shower and messed it up once she’d finished because he didn’t like it. His stomach was exploding with butterflies and at one point, he was fairly sure that he was going to faint. Although that may have had something to do with Thor insisting on sitting on him (don’t even ask).

By the time 6pm rolled around, Steve was a mess.

“You just gotta relax a little, Steve,” Clint told him with a shake of his head, “it’s just a date.”

“It’s a little different when you’re going on a date with someone you’ve been in love with for months, Clint,” Steve snapped irritably, before sighing, “I just… I don’t wanna get this wrong. What if- I dunno, what if he just thinks it’s lame? That _I’m_ lame?”

“You’re not lame, Steve,” Bruce told him, patting him on the shoulder, “and I promise, he won’t think anything ill of you. I don’t think he could if he tried.”

Steve bit his lip and then straightened out his tie, trying not to bunch his shoulders up too tight as he looked in the mirror. The last thing he wanted was for Tony to feel like he was walking into a battlefield when he saw Steve. This was supposed to just be a fun, chill, happy night out.

“Okay,” Steve said, nodding, “okay, right, I’m ready. How do I look?” He asked with a small smile, twirling for his friends as they all whistled and cheered.

“I’d fuck you,” Clint told him approvingly, giving him a thumbs up. “We’ll have the place ready for you by the time you get back, promise.”

“Go get ‘em, Tiger,” Nat said, slapping his shoulder with vigor as she grinned.

Steve beamed at her, pushing back his hair and then walking confidently out of his room. He’d arranged to meet Tony down at the garage, where they could pick a car and then arrive together. Steve had already decided which one to take- the Aston Martin was classy as hell, and he knew that Tony loved it. He always looked good in cars, and Steve had never been able to work out quite why that was. He just…suited them.

That being said, he tended to suit everything. Or maybe Steve just had a bit of bias.

When the elevator doors opened into the garage, he spotted Tony already waiting for him. His heart did flips under his ribcage, and for a second he forgot every strategy, every plan, every ounce of fear. There was just Tony, looking utterly exquisite in his dark navy suit and sharp white tie, his hair left fluffy and so very touchable and his smile bright enough to light up the sky.

Steve loved him so much that it hurt.

“Hey,” Tony said, voice trailing off a little as he looked Steve up and down. Steve himself was dressed in his old army uniform, finished with the cap that Natasha had titled at a jaunty angle for what she called ‘that hint of flair’. Apparently it was working, because Tony seemed to freeze for a moment, before his system rebooted and he pulled his eyes back up to Steve’s face. “You look dashing,” he said in the end, smiling brightly.

“Thanks,” Steve shuffled awkwardly between each foot, and then waved over to the Aston in the corner, “I was thinking of taking this one?”

Tony cocked an eyebrow. “Oh, you’ve got a game-plan tonight then, huh?” He asked.

Steve couldn’t help but grin a little as he stepped forward. Despite everything, it was actually kinda hard to remain nervous around Tony. He was just… he was so easy to be around. “Oh, you bet I have,” he said with a cheeky laugh, “which includes me driving.”

Tony gasped. “Nuh uh.”

“Absolutely.”

“That Aston is my baby-“

“They’re _all_ your babies, Tony,” Steve rolled his eyes and walked over, looking down at him with a soft grin, “anyway, I’ve never driven her before. I’d like a turn for once.”

Tony folded his arms petulantly for a moment, but then he just sighed and waved a hand. “God, fine,” he conceded in the end, “but you should know, this is a one-off event.”

Steve laughed as he slid into the driver’s seat, and he made sure to set the radio to a station Tony liked as he hit the gas and then got driving. He had a feeling that this was going to be a great night.

 

 

 

 

_

 

 

 

 

He’d jinxed it.

It wasn’t a good night. It was a fucking terrible night. The worst.

 

It had started out well enough. Steve and Tony had been chatting, making conversation, generally getting on as they usually did- excellently. Steve had been feeling more and more confident as the night had gone on, to the point where he could hardly even remember what he’d been so nervous about in the first place. Being with Tony was just so ridiculously _easy_. Talking to him was as simple as breathing, and Steve, in all honesty, didn’t even need to hear the words properly to enjoy it. The sound of Tony’s honey-smooth voice alone would entertain him all night. He imagined everything that Tony might say to him in a different setting, maybe after a few more dates. How pleased Steve would feel to hear that voice crack with desire. He imagined Tony would sound beautiful in bed. Tony would sound beautiful anywhere.

And then Steve had had to go and get fucking drinks.

That was the worst fucking part. Maybe, if he’d have just not bothered, none of it would have happened. Maybe they’d have gotten through the night un-interrupted, and then Steve could have taken Tony home and it would have turned out okay.

He knew it wasn’t true, and he supposed a part of him was actually glad. It definitely saved Steve some substantial mortification in the long run. If he’d have taken Tony home and shown him Stage Two of his plan… God, the thought alone made Steve want to die.

Anyway. Yeah. He’d gotten up to get the fucking drinks, and it had been normal, and Steve had been buzzing off the high of success, and then he’d gotten back five minutes later and- and there had been someone else there. Sat on the other side of Tony.

Steve looked at him curiously, setting his and Tony’s drinks down on the table and slipping back into his spot. Tony looked over to him with a smile, and then leaned back. “Hey Steve, meet my new friend Mark,” he said cheerily, “new friend Mark, meet Steve.”

Mark looked at him with a genuine, kind smile as he leaned forward and extended a hand. “Hi,” he said, “you must be Captain America. It’s an honour.”

Steve smiled back, inclining his head. “Don’t mention it,” he said. It still felt weird, even now, to hear people say that- ‘it’s an honour’. Why? Steve just wore a flag and punched people who needed punching. It was what every good man would do in his position.

He opened his mouth to say something to Tony, but before he could it seemed that the other man had jumped back into his conversation with Mark again, talking avidly and waving his hands through the air; a clear sign of his excitement.

It was fine, at first. Tony was Tony. People wanted to talk to Tony a lot. And Mark seemed nice enough. He was tall, pretty well built, blonde hair that was cut into an overgrown buzz-type thing. Seemed like military, which would explain why he was here, Steve figured.

Oh, and another thing: he barely took his eyes off Tony at all.

Steve, for the first five minutes, was mostly just confused. He could admit, he wasn’t sure how dates were supposed to go- whether this was what usually happened, or whether it wasn’t actually normal to have your date pretty much entirely ignore you for someone else. Tony was chatting to Mark like there was no tomorrow, smiling and laughing and leaning in close to him, his whole attention focused solely on what the man was saying. It seemed he was a scientist within the US military, and from what Steve could hear and understand, the guy was smart. Very smart.

“I’ve been working in Nepal for about two years before now,” Mark said as he sipped at his champagne flute, “trying to help work out solutions for some of the most common diseases- Dengue Fever and the like. Although I gotta admit, it’s not really my area. I’m more of a physicist than a biologist, but I thought that it would be an experience and, well-“ he shrugged, “I guess I just wanted to help, you know?”

Tony’s face softened, and when Mark glanced his way Steve tried to smile too, but he wasn’t sure it came out quite right. There was a strange feeling in the pit of his stomach, and it felt a little too much like bleak realization. It only got stronger when he watched as Tony’s hand came down and fell against Mark’s arm, thumb stroking imperceptibly across the cuff of Mark’s suit. Steve could only watch them. Helpless.

“You’ve gotta show me your research sometime,” Tony said with enthusiasm, totally oblivious to Steve’s growing sense of horror as he smiled at Mark in a way he never smiled at Steve: _lustfully_. “It sounds fascinating. I gotta admit, I wasn’t expecting to run into a fellow scientist at a military convention.  Makes an interesting change.”

“Well, I’m not just a pretty face, Mr. Stark,” Mark said smoothly, and Tony’s laugh was low and playful. Seductive.

Not aimed at Steve.

“That does sweeten the deal a little though, don’t you agree? Although don’t think that that’s all I’m seeing you as, obviously. Sure you have many other talents, darling,” Tony said quietly, glancing up at the other man through his eyelashes before taking a long sip from his own champagne glass. It was a blatant come-on. Tony was flirting with him because he wanted in his pants, and Steve was… Steve was _right there._ _Next to him._

And something in his stomach just sank, down and down and down, through the floor, through the basement levels and then hitting the ground with an agonizing thump as he watched the two of them.

 

He’d gotten it wrong.

 

With a sickening lurch, it dawned on him that Tony must not have even thought of this as a date. He was so uninterested in Steve that even when Steve asked him to be the plus-one, he’d assumed that they were just going as friends. All of the stuff Steve had thought had just been him fucking projecting. Tony _hadn’t_ been interested. _Tony hadn’t even known he was on a fucking date._

And now he had found someone else. At the place Steve had invited him to in an attempt to ask him out.

He felt like he could hardly breathe. The waves were crashing in his head and he cursed violently inside the confines of his own mind _. Idiot idiot idiot, you fucking moron, stupid stupid fucking shithead. How could you have gotten this so fucking wrong?_

Well. He knew exactly how, actually. It was because he was so stupidly in love, that he’d been willing to just take any morsel that he could find and spin it into a big deal in his own head. Try and pretend it meant something when it fucking _didn’t_.

Who was he kidding? Tony wasn’t ever going to even look twice at someone like Steve. He should have realised that from the very beginning.

He couldn’t stop watching them as they talked. Tony was leaning in close, looking at Mark with such fascination in his eyes that Steve thought he was going to throw up, but he still couldn’t take his eyes away. Tony tried to involve him in the conversation a few times, because he was considerate like that, and still wanted to include him even though for some reason Steve wasn’t taking any hints and mingling with everyone like Tony must have expected him to, but was instead just hanging around while Tony chatted up someone else. Steve didn’t answer with anything of interest though- didn’t think that he could. They were talking about science, and Steve just couldn’t keep up. He tried. Made a few last-ditch attempts. But he couldn’t.

The final straw broke when, a few minutes later, he watched Mark’s leg shift under the table; saw it move up and down gently, and knew exactly what was happening under those high-quality lace tablecloths.

They were playing fucking footsie with one another.

Steve stood suddenly,  jerking the whole table. Tony turned to him and blinked in surprise. “Steve,” he asked with concern in his voice, “you okay?”

Steve nodded. “I- uh- sorry,” he said rapidly, “remembered I gotta make a call. I’ll only be a minute.”

He turned and walked away quickly, blinking quickly and looking down at the floor. His jaw was clenched so tight he thought he was going to shatter his teeth, and he made sure not to glance back to the two men behind him once. He just kept walking until he made it to the bar, where he stumbled onto a stool and pulled out his phone with shaking fingers. The world was spinning, and not in a good way.

It took three beeps until Natasha answered cheerily. “Hey Steve! How’s it g-“

“-get rid of it all,” Steve cut in bluntly, hands curling into fists in front of him. He was shaking. “Just- all of it. Please. He can’t know it was ever going to happen.”

“Steve?” Natasha asked, her voice turning quickly from happy to deeply concerned, “Steve, what’s wrong? You sound terrible. Has something happened?”

Steve shut his eyes. God, he felt completely mortified. He couldn’t believe he’d fucked up so badly. What a fucking pathetic _idiot_ he was. “Please,” he said quietly, “please, just… do it. I’ll tell you later.”

Natasha said nothing for a second, but then he heard her head move in a nodding motion down the line. “Okay Steve,” she said gently, “he won’t guess a thing. Promise. Look after yourself, okay?”

He tried to say okay back, but it didn’t come out. He just grunted and then ended the call, taking a breath that failed to fill his lungs up properly. He wished the night had never happened. He wished he’d never dared to even hope in the first place. He’d _known_ it would end badly, he’d known and he’d _still_ goddamn gone along with it anyway. What was wrong with him?

Why had he ever even bothered to play with the idea that Tony could feel half of what Steve felt? Yeah, _sure_ \- Tony usually went for the geniuses with ten PhD’s, the wild and whacky ones that could hold the attention of the entire room without trying, the sexy and the seductive who were so experienced they could probably get Tony off just by looking at him- but of course, Steve had thought that for some ridiculous fucking reason, _he_ had stood a chance. Stupid, boring, barely-even-kissed-anyone Steve.

What a fucking joke.

He swallowed heavily and looked straight down at the bar. He wasn’t going to do something really stupid, like cry. That would just top off the whole pathetic vibe he was sporting right now. No- he just needed to go home. Needed to pull himself together and accept the role that he played in Tony’s life: a friend. A best friend. That was more than enough.

He turned around and looked back to Tony and Mark. They were still talking. Totally caught up in each other’s worlds.

Steve couldn’t even bear to go and tell Tony he was leaving. He didn’t trust himself not to do something stupid.

He opened up Tony’s contact and typed out a quick message about an emergency popping up, and then snuck out through the back entrance and hailed a cab before anyone could notice he’d even gone.

The twenty minute drive back home was uneventful and he spent most of it just staring blankly out of the windows, looking at the traffic and thinking of what Tony was doing with Mark now that Steve wasn’t there. He’d called Steve five minutes after the text had been sent, but Steve had let it go to answerphone, and then sent off a brief text about everything being okay, but he just needed to get to SHIELD to check up on a resurfaced contact who was asking urgently for Steve. A complete lie, but he just couldn’t find it in himself to care.

Tony told him to be safe, Steve told him to enjoy his night.

He was probably going to go home with Mark.

Steve couldn’t help it- he laughed out loud. The driver looked up at him a little nervously, but Steve didn’t care. Because it was fucking _funny_ \- Steve had been trying to set himself up with Tony for _months_ , and then on the night he finally thinks he has it in the bag, he manages to go and accidentally set Tony up with someone else. That was some top-quality fucking up right there.

The tower loomed up ahead of him, and Steve thanked the driver before stepping out fluidly. He smashed the button for his room when he got into the elevator, not bothering to stop off at the communal area and see his friends. He didn’t feel like talking this out right now. He felt like punching something very, very hard.

He opened the door to his room and then just stood there for a few seconds, taking in the sight of his floor with a bitter amusement. Clothes were strewn everywhere- there was aftershave lined up on the windowsill in preparation, and hair cremes that Natasha had tried to put on him in attempt to flatten out the spikes at the back of his head.

He’d tried so hard.

With a cough, Steve looked down and then marched over to his wardrobe, pulling out his gym gear quickly. He was changed in two minutes and out of the door again in five, heading for SHIELD on his motorbike. He told the team that was where he was so they wouldn’t worry, and then told them not to follow.

 _What happened man?_ Clint texted him three minutes later.

 **It wasn’t a date,** Steve replied curtly, **I got it wrong. Tony thought it was a buddy thing. And then he hooked up with someone else.**

_Oh shit._

**Yeah. Shit.**

Steve turned his phone off after that, throwing it into his kitbag and finding the nearest punching bag in the SHIELD training rooms. They were crappy and unreliable- nothing like the ones Tony made for him, but they’d do.

He took a deep breath, and started hitting it with all the might his body would allow. He didn’t stop until the sun rose.

 

 

 

 

_

 

 

 

 

Before deciding whether or not to go back to the tower the next day, he called Bruce. It only took a few seconds for the other man to pick up, which meant they all must have been waiting for it, because Bruce rarely even looked at his phone unless he was expecting a call.

“Did Tony come home last night?” Steve asked before Bruce could try any of his stupid pity.

Bruce paused for a moment, before sighing. “Yeah,” he said, “yeah, he did. He… he came with that guy- Mike or whatever the fuck.”

There was a long silence. Steve wasn’t sure what to say. It wasn’t like he hadn’t been expecting that, but still- hearing it in words just sent a new twist of agony through his heart. He clenched down on the phone and then nodded to himself, sagging sideways against the wall.

“I’m so sorry,” Bruce blurted eventually, as if he couldn’t help himself, “this was- this was our fault, we shouldn’t have pushed, it… he hasn’t come home with anyone in months, we thought that-“

“Don’t stress it, Bruce,” Steve sighed, looking down at the bag. It was smeared with streaks of red- he’d gotten too carried away again, “are they… are they still at the tower?”

Bruce was silent again, and it was answer enough. “I could tell Tony he needs to leave,” he suggested, but Steve shook his head violently.

“No,” he said, “No, you don’t have to. I’m an adult, Bruce, I can handle this. It’s fine. I’ll be home in twenty.”

He called off and then straightened his back, schooling his face down. He had to remember that this wasn’t anyone’s fault except his own. It was him who’d gotten carried away, him who’d not been clear enough at the very beginning. What happened now was just something he was going to have to deal with.

It was most likely just a stupid fling. Tony did it a lot. Steve didn’t need to get so damn upset about it all. Like he’d told Bruce- he was a grown-ass man. He could handle it. It was probably just some casual sex with a hot scientist, and when he left the tower, that would be the last that Steve ever saw of him.

He grabbed his bag and then left SHIELD, zooming through early-morning traffic on his bike until he arrived back at the tower fifteen minutes later. The cold air had stung at his red-raw knuckles and turned his cheeks a sharp pink, and it helped to set him back on solid ground again.

It had hurt, but at least now he knew. And that was better, really. In the long run.

It was.

Steve arrived in the common floor of the tower with a smile that he hoped was real. At once, he was assaulted with the noises that were so familiar in the morning- frying oil, laughter, arguing and clattering of cutlery. They were all in the kitchen as usual, and when Steve rounded the corner, every face looked up at him at once.

Including Mark. Who was still, apparently, here. Having breakfast with them all.

“Steve!” Tony said, and Steve turned to the coffee machine where the sound had come from. Tony was beaming over at him, his hair messy and wearing his usual morning attire- baggy sweatpants that had to be at least ten years old and the first shirt he could find.

Steve knew immediately that it wasn’t Tony’s own. Way too big.

He tried to smile back, but he didn’t think it worked very well, because Tony’s face fell slightly. “You okay?” He asked, cocking his head as he wrapped his fingers around the mug of his coffee.

“Yeah,” he said, trying a smile again. This time it worked a little better. “Yeah, I’m just tired. Long night.” He turned quickly to the cupboards and then pulled out a box of cereal randomly from within: one of Clint’s disgustingly sugary ones that offered no nutritional value whatsoever. All he had to do was act normal. Act normal until all of it blew over, until Mark went home and the whole night was forgotten. He could do that.

He sensed Clint sidle up to him but didn’t acknowledge the other man- simply concentrated on pouring the milk into the cereal. Behind him, he could hear Tony and Mark talking. It was a story, by the sounds of it: a funny one from the way Tony was laughing at it. Steve couldn’t help but glance upward to the surface of the fridge where he could see everyone behind him reflected there. Tony was sat on the stool sipping at his coffee, his legs strung over Mark’s lap. He was relaxed and happy, and Mark’s thumb was stroking slowly over Tony’s bare ankle. It was an affectionate action.

Clint plucked the milk from his hands easily, and only then did Steve realised he’d poured so much that it had started overflowing. “Hey,” he said cheerfully, patting Steve on the back as he quickly discarded the milk, “Steve, I’ve got something really cool to show you in, uhhh— in my room. You should totally come and check that out.”

He heard the sounds of laughter behind them and turned, watching Tony as he faced Steve in amusement. “Because that doesn’t sound suspicious at all,” he commented dryly, looking at Clint, “are you going to take him up there and murder him, Barton? Because that what it sounds like from here.”

“Aren’t they the exact same words you used to convince me to go up to _your_ room last night?” Mark asked, tilting his head at Tony amusedly.

Tony looked back at him with a grin. “Yes, but I was _much_ more smooth about it, hot stuff.”

Steve looked away. He felt vaguely ill. “I think I need a shower,” he said, looking down at himself. He probably stank of sweat.

The team were looking at him like he was some sort of wounded animal and Steve just fucking hated it. Hated their pity. He wished they would just forget the past few months where they’d had to deal with Steve’s stupid pining, his ridiculous fantasies about something that he’d known from the start wasn’t actually going to happen.

“I’ll see you all later,” Steve said quickly, and then there was no other way to describe what he did next: he turned tail and he ran.

 

 

 

 

_

 

 

 

 

Someone knocked on his door, and Steve looked up from his sketchpad in surprise, his pencil scribbling an accidental line over the skyline of New York.

Steve huffed irritably and dropped the pen, standing up. His bones ached from being locked in position for so long, and he rolled his neck back and forth as he reached out for the door.

When he opened it, of course, it had to be Tony who was standing on the other end of it. Who else? Obviously the universe wasn’t done fucking him over yet.

“Oh,” he said in surprise, “hey.”

Tony said nothing for a moment, just looking at him. He was dressed in proper clothes now- of course he was, it was evening by that point, he wasn’t going to stay in Mark’s stupid fashionable shirts forever. He was also wearing his glasses, which meant that he’d been in the workshop for most, if not all, of the day.

They were cute. Steve loved Tony’s glasses.

He looked away sharply and shoved the thoughts from his mind.

“Did I upset you?” Tony got straight to the point in the way he always did, folding his arms and frowning. He looked troubled. “You haven’t left your room all day, and you were… weird, at breakfast.”

Steve felt his face close off. “You didn’t upset me,” he said bluntly, because if there was one thing he was never ever going to admit, it was that.

Tony sighed. “Well I quite obviously did, didn’t I, or you wouldn’t be sulking right now.”

“I’m not _sulking_ , Tony, I’m busy.”

“You’re not busy, you’re still in your fucking gym gear, which you obviously haven’t changed out of since this morning! Did you even shower like you’d said you were gonna?” Tony looked down at Steve’s hands and then blinked rapidly, seeing the barely-healed wounds that were all over his knuckles. He reached out a hand, and Steve knew what he was intending to do- he was going to inspect them, and then possibly yell at Steve for not wearing gloves again.

Steve tucked his hands behind his back jerkily. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to handle Tony touching him just then.

Tony froze, and then backed off. Now he just looked hurt. “It’s Mark, isn’t it?” He asked- and for one horrible, terrifying second, Steve wondered if Tony had worked it out- but thankfully, the next sentence assured Steve he hadn’t. “You’re mad because I ditched you for some hot guy instead of spending time with you, aren’t you? I’m sorry. I really am. I know that you brought me along for company and I was shit, but I…” he shrugged, giving Steve the smallest, most nervous little smile, “if it helps, I actually… well. I actually think I- uh- I really connected with him. Not just in the horny sense, either. I couldn’t help it. I just got carried away.”

No. No that absolutely did not help, not even a little bit. Steve made a conscious effort to relax his grip on the door before he broke it entirely, and tried not to show to Tony that his simple words of attempted comfort had just managed to dig a jagged shard of pain even deeper into his heart.

Right. So Tony actually liked Mark.

Brilliant.

What was Steve even supposed to _say_ to that? Jesus Christ- he couldn’t deny it, because then Tony would want to know the real reason. It was easier to just let Tony jump to his own conclusions.

So he just nodded. “Yeah,” he muttered emptily, “kind of a dick move.”

“I promise I’ll make it up to you,” Tony surged forward, his hand going to Steve’s shoulder, warm and comforting, “we could go visit that pop-up art display in Times Square that you’ve been interested in seeing for days- I know my schedule is kinda packed, but I’ll make time. Or I’ll take you out and let you drive whatever car you want, even if it’s the Chevvy, my Baby Above All Babies.” Tony smiled hopefully at Steve, like he desperately wanted Steve to smile back. “Please? I really am sorry I ditched you. It wasn’t intentional.”

“Yeah,” Steve said, forcing out a smile despite the fact that was the very last thing his face wanted to do, “just got swept away in the romance, huh?”

That had been his plan. That had been….

It was supposed to have been Steve.

“Yeah,” Tony said with a bashful grin, bouncing up and down on his toes, “yeah, I did. Anyway- are we good? Because if we’re not, I will stay here and grovel. I have no dignity, Steve, you know that-“

“-shuddup,” Steve said with a weak smile and a huff as he jostled their shoulders together. He swallowed down everything else he wanted to say, in the same way he had been doing from the very beginning. Tony neither needed nor wanted to hear any of it. “We’re good.”

Tony smiled at him. He was so beautiful when he smiled. “Okay,” he said, nodding happily, “feel free to reschedule another date for us to hang out in. As long as it’s not Tuesday- I wanna meet Mark for coffee and it’s the only day he’s free this week.”

Steve’s heart stuttered. “You’re meeting him again?” He said, forcing his voice to remain even.

Tony grinned, oblivious as he looked down and scratched the back of his head sheepishly. “I know, right,” he said, “me, seeing a one night stand again? Unheard of.” He huffed. “But, uh- I dunno. Mark is just… he seems really great. He’s different. I think— I think that there’s a real connection there, you know?”

The shard ploughed deeper into his heart, hurting him like a physical pain. Steve resisted the urge to choke on the empty air that had gotten stuck in his throat.

“A real connection,” he repeated softly, looking somewhere over Tony’s shoulder. If he looked at the man’s face right now, he didn’t think he’d be able to keep up the façade, “huh. That sounds… nice.”

Tony’s smile was wide, and Steve had to smile back. He had to.

Because Tony seemed happy. And so Steve could never, ever let Tony know that it was breaking his heart to watch.

 

 

 

 

_  
  
  
  
  
At around ten that evening, he finally decided to just go back downstairs again and see the team. He’d been locked up in his room all day, and even he was getting a little bored of that. There was only so much a man could do in his own company before going a little stir-crazy.

He made sure to compose himself a little before heading down. He didn’t want the team to think he was a mess, because he wasn’t. He could handle rejection just fine, thank you. He’d been doing it his whole damn life. So he took a shower and changed his clothes, made sure he was looking decent and then opened up his door, heading down to the communal floor. He was feeling a little better, by that point. Slightly less like an open, exposed wound and more like… well, an open and exposed wound that Steve had just forced himself to ignore so that he could carry on.

The floor was pretty dark as Steve stepped out of the elevator, with only the lights on in the kitchen and everything else being plunged into darkness. Steve knew what that meant- they must have picked out a movie. He smiled tiredly and then walked through into the living room, spotting all of his friends curled up with one another as they stared at the screen in front of them. Indiana Jones was currently hanging off the side of a jeep, as usual. Steve’s smile got wider: he loved that movie.

Thor clocked him first, his hand pausing its movement through Bruce’s curls in order to wave up at Steve in greeting. He didn’t say anything so as not to draw attention, and for that Steve was grateful. Thor and Bruce both shuffled up a bit, giving Steve room to squeeze himself in on the couch.

“Hey,” Bruce whispered as he inserted himself gingerly into the gap, “how’s it going?”

Steve shrugged. “Fine,” he replied simply, looking around, “anyone made popcorn?”

Wordlessly, Natasha handed it over. “Tony’s down in the shop,” she told him.

Again, he shrugged. Not his problem, really.

There was a long silence, everyone’s eyes on the TV but their minds on a different matter entirely. Steve felt stiff and awkward, like he was on show for all of them. It wasn’t a fair thing to think; they were concerned, because they were his friends.

But Steve had spent his whole life being pitied. Now, of all times, he didn’t need it.

“I’d like to just pretend that this never happened,” he declared in the end, his back straight and rigid as he watched the TV. “It was a mistake. I can see that now.”

He could almost sense the four of his friends all holding their tongues to stop from trying to argue with him. He just sighed, and then looked around at all of them with a weak smile. “Please, guys,” he murmured, “I don’t want to make this a big deal.”

“But it _was_ a big deal,” Clint blurted helplessly, “it was… this was not what was supposed to happen, I don’t-“

“Yeah, well it did,” Steve informed him, “and that’s fine. I didn’t call dibs on Tony, and I most certainly was not the only one ever interested in him. He’s been with… a lot of people in his time, and he’ll undoubtedly be with a lot more. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s all good.”

_I just wish that it could’ve been me._

He shook his head and turned back to the film. It was about time he learned how to deal with something like this. Tony had never made any promises to Steve. He’d never implied he wasn’t going to date people, either. So Steve really had to learn to deal with that, seeing as they were best friends, and so Steve would likely be the first person that Tony told about all his partners.

Which was fine. Friends was fine.

And hey, if he was lucky, they’d never hear of Mark again. The bitterness that surrounded that person in particular could be forgotten, and the next person to come along would be way easier to deal with. Steve was sure of it. He was mature enough to deal with Tony dating other people, and if he was lucky, then maybe it would help Steve to move on himself. He hadn’t dated at all since he woke up from the ice. He’d just been too busy, and too scared, and then too set on Tony to even think of anyone else. But he should. According to everyone else on the planet, dates were fun. They might help Steve’s confidence a little. And then next time he found himself wanting someone, it wouldn’t take him over a month to build up the courage to ask them on a fucking date.

He was going to be okay. He just had to weather the storm and see it through to the other side.

 

 

_

 

 

 

 

Tony went on a date with Mark the following Wednesday.

Then another on Saturday.

Then another.

 

If he was honest with himself, it was something Steve had seen coming, the moment that he’d walked into the tower that morning and seen the two of them. Tony usually started distancing himself from his partners in the morning in order to make sure they got the message that the night was over, but with Mark, he hadn’t done that. Hadn’t even tried. And Steve had attempted to excuse it, tried to just say that it was a one-off, but it hadn’t worked. He’d known, deep down, that Tony had looked at Mark as if he was more than just a fling. He’d looked at Mark with real fascination in his eyes, and that look hadn’t faded in the weeks that had passed since.

He seemed really happy.

“None of us like him,” Clint declared to Steve one morning when Tony wasn’t in the room, “Mark’s a dick.”

“Agreed,” Thor said solemnly, “a total dick. Everything he does is very…. Dick-like.”

Steve looked over to them with a small smile, rolling his eyes. “I appreciate the support,” he told them, “but you don’t have to do that. I can handle this like an adult.”

Clint and Thor were both silent, and then they shared a look before doing a joint shrug. “We still hate him,” Thor said, clapping Steve on the back.

And maybe at first, it was true. The whole team aside from Tony were pretty cold toward the man, in an attempt to remain in solidarity with Steve. He figured they still felt guilty for encouraging him in the first place, which was stupid. The only one to blame was Steve. But they hadn’t been able to keep it up for long. Because the worst thing was that Mark really was a nice guy. He was funny, and he was charming, and he was smart as hell. He could keep up with Tony’s babbling better than Steve ever could. He knew a bit about what Bruce specialised in, too, which had been the opening to a rapid-fire conversation between the two men that had lasted for at least two hours. He’d sat down and watched some of Clint’s cartoons whilst he’d been waiting for Tony to get ready, and it turned out that he was an avid fan of them (he claimed it helped him to concentrate, for whatever reason), meaning he and Clint had bonded over that. Natasha had been harder, because she didn’t trust strangers by nature, especially not ones who had (if admittedly unwillingly) hurt her friends. However even Steve could tell that she’d softened a little over time. And of course, Thor was physically incapable of hating anyone at all- especially when they were that fucking nice.

Because that’s what Mark was. He was _nice_. He was a good fucking person, and Steve fucking hated it.

Out of all of them, Steve knew he was the only one who had not even attempted to talk to him. He avoided whatever areas he saw Mark in, he was cold and blunt whenever the man _did_ try to talk to him, and his entire vocabulary was reduced mostly to rough grunts during their pathetic attempts at conversation.

He couldn’t help it. He was being an asshole and he knew it, even though Mark had done nothing to deserve it. He’d just gotten in first. He’d been brave where Steve had been fucking cowardly, and he’d moved in on Tony in literally about a hundredth of the time that Steve had been attempting to.

It was like whatever he did, he was always missing his chances. And whenever he looked at Mark, he was viciously reminded of that fact.

It hurt. So Steve avoided it. He made sure not to be around whenever Mark was around in the tower, and he evaded all conversation that could possibly spring up between them. Tony always looked at him funny when he saw Steve doing it, and so he put on a front of tried a little harder if Tony was in the room too. The last thing he wanted was for Tony to put two and two together, after all.

Of course, though, it only lasted a few weeks. Steve knew that it wouldn’t hold forever- Tony was by no means an idiot, and Steve was supposed to be his best friend. He knew when Steve was fronting. And dammit all to hell, but it was just so much harder to lie to Tony than it was to lie to anyone else.

“We need to talk,” Tony cornered him one day as Steve was walking down the gym, his hands blocking off the door as he glared.

Steve stopped. “About what?”

“You know what.”

Steve looked at him, praying Tony would just drop it. “No I d-“

“Mark,” Tony said simply, “you don’t like him.”

Steve paused. Wondered whether he could get away with denying it.

“Do not even bother,” Tony pointed a finger at him before Steve could open his mouth, “your gym sessions have gone up sixty-percent since Mark started visiting the tower, and all of them fall whenever he is in the vicinity. You’re trying to avoid him.” He folded his arms. “Why?”

Steve looked away, shaking his head. “Guess I just… haven’t really warmed up to him yet,” he said in the end. That was safe. Easier than ‘ _I’m hopelessly in love with you and can’t bear to see you with someone else, even when they’re making you happy’_ , anyway.

Tony sighed, leaning against the side of the door. He had a grease stain on the underside of his ear, where he habitually scratched when he was trying to work through a problem. There were little pink bits of foam in his hair. Steve wanted to run his fingers through it and pull them out. He didn’t.

“Mark’s a good guy, Steve,” he said in the end, “and he’s sort of having a crisis over the fact that Captain America hates him.”

“I don’t hate him,” Steve lied weakly, “I just don’t know him, Tony. We got off on the wrong foot. I got pissed off at him at the gala and I just haven’t, you know. Worked past it yet.”

Tony pulled a face. “The gala was like a month ago, Steve, and it wasn’t even his fault.” He stepped forward and then grabbed Steve’s arms. His face was open, and Steve could see the unhappiness there. It was obvious that this was getting to him. “Look- I know that trust issues are a definite thing amongst all of us, and strangers are bad and we don’t like them etcetera etcetera- but I promise, Mark isn’t evil. And I want you to get on. You’re my best friend, Steve.”

It was like a very particular sort of hell. Tony called him his best friend and all Steve could think about was how much he wanted to kiss Tony’s mouth as it moved and made those words. He’d thought that his stupid infatuation would fade after the night when he’d met Mark. Or maybe in the days after, when Tony had started going on dates with him. But it hadn’t. All it had gotten was more painful.

He smiled down at Tony and nodded. “I’ll try,” he said, breathing in and composing himself.

Tony beamed, fingers squeezing around Steve’s arms. “Great!” He said, “come on then.”

“What? Now?” Steve asked, feeling the tug as Tony pulled him back to the communal living area.

“Why not?” Tony looked back at him, “I’m here, Mark’s here, the team is here. It’ll be fun.”

On Steve’s long list of things he found fun, going up and socialising with Mark was most definitely not one of them. But he nodded anyway, letting Tony push him back in the direction they’d come from. This was what best friends did. This was Steve’s role. And he could do that, for Tony. Because Tony had no idea, and Steve intended to keep it that way.

When they arrived in the living room, it was full of all his friends. They were sprawled on various couches and beanbags, talking amicably amongst one another with bottles of beers and glasses of wine in their hands. Steve wished he could get drunk. It might make it easier.

“Guess who I found,” Tony said happily, shoving Steve forward and then stepping lightly over team-mates before finding his place back at Mark’s side. Steve stood awkwardly in the middle of the room for a moment, before looking down and then sitting in an empty spot. He even smiled at Mark. “Hey,” he said with a nod.

Mark smiled back. Of course he did. Rainbows and fucking sunshine, was that guy. “Hi Captain Rogers.”

“Oh God, just Steve is fine,” he waved a hand and laughed weakly, “uh- anyone got a beer?”

Bruce handed him one, sharing a small sympathetic look at him as he did so, and Steve took it gratefully, popping the cap and taking a long, deep swig. The conversation started up tentatively again, and every so often he’d catch Tony shooting him furtive looks, making sure Steve was still involved. Steve listened to what Mark had to say- listened to his exciting stories of the time he’d actually been at the same place as Tony years ago, the after-party of some conference in Geneva. Sounded like he’d had a wild time there- almost gotten arrested, if his tale was true. Real interesting guy.

What had Steve been doing seven years ago? Ah yeah- he’d been comatose. How riveting.

The longer Mark talked, the worse Steve felt. He noticed the way Marks’ hand fell absently against Tony’s thigh as he spoke, his thumb running circles absently against the fabric of his jeans. He saw the way Tony looked at him; fond in a way Steve didn’t see often.

Steve could take credit for that. He’d set the two of them up, hadn’t he?

He took another long sip of his beer and looked away. It was fine. It was fine. He sometimes felt as if the weight of it all might crush through his ribcage and choke him to fucking death, but it was fine.

It all got worse at night, though.

At night, when everyone had gone to bed and Steve was alone in his room. He wasn’t an idiot- he knew that three doors down in Tony’s bedroom, they were probably fucking. And it was probably amazing, because Mark would know what to do and so would Tony, and they would both love every moment of it.

Sometimes Steve thought though, about what it would be like if it were him, instead of Mark.

He knew Tony better. There was no way to deny it- he’d known Tony for a year and a bit, and Mark had known him for what, a month? So yeah. Steve knew him fucking better. And maybe he didn’t have all the knowledge and technique that Mark might possess, but he was a fast learner and he was strong, and he knew that Tony would appreciate both of those things. He could lift Tony up and fuck him against the wall if he wanted. And Tony’s voice would sound so sweet in his ears; he’d whine and he’d be _desperate_ , rutting against Steve’s thigh just begging to come. His hands would dig welts into Steve’s shoulders where he gripped them, and the marks wouldn’t last for long, but the ones that Steve made on him in return would. He’d suck hickeys all over Tony’s beautiful neck where he knew that Tony was so sensitive, and he would listen to the vibrations through his throat as Tony whined, scrabbled harder, bit his lip to stop from groaning too loudly. Steve didn’t really know how to talk dirty, but oh, some of the things that he thought- if he put them into words, he knew it’d probably make even Tony blush and moan with uncontrollable longing. And he got the feeling that Tony could give back as much as he got- he’d know exactly where he could put his hands to get Steve off, precisely what things to say to drive Steve half-crazy. He’d always been good at that, even if he didn’t know it. Sometimes it felt as if Steve was just hardwired to react to him.

When Tony did eventually come, he wouldn’t writhe and yell like people probably assumed Tony Stark did in bed. No. Steve knew him better than that. Instead, he knew that Tony would go totally limp in Steve’s arms, trusting him entirely to hold him upright- bury his face into the side of Steve’s jaw and whisper his name like he had that one time when he’d come home drunk from the gala: with so very very _much_ in that one single syllable, that Steve would come too.

 

Which he did.  
On the bed.  
Alone.  
In the fucking dark as he fantasized about a taken man. Probably while he was in the middle of fucking someone else.

 

Steve gasped quietly, shutting his eyes and hating himself as he came down from the bittersweet high of his orgasm. There was no one else who could make him come quite as hard as Tony did- and the guy wasn’t even in the fucking room.

With a groan, Steve wiped himself off and then rolled over to his stomach, face landing in his pillow. He shut his eyes and tried to push the fantasies away. He always did, every single time they came around at night. But it just never seemed to work. Tony’s face burned in his mind, a constant source of satisfaction that he couldn’t get in real life, and Steve just needed it too much.

He wondered what the hell he was going to do. Seeing Tony was too hard- every time he did, Steve just… went a little more insane with the need to reach out and touch. And before, when Tony had been single, that might have been a little more acceptable. But now? God, if Tony found out, he’d lose it. Steve was supposed to be his _friend_. Friends didn’t jerk off to the thought of each other at night. Friends didn’t think about the dates that they could go on together, or plan out all the ways in the conceivable universe that they could make their other friend smile.

Friends didn’t wish that _they’d just asked first._

But what did it matter either way, Steve thought with a huff as he rolled back over and looked at the ceiling. Steve could have asked at the beginning of the night, he could have asked at the beginning of the damn month, and the result would still have been the same

 

Tony just didn’t love him back. Steve Rogers was, quite simply, not enough.

 

 

 

 

_

 

 

 

 

He woke up the next morning and was heading to SHIELD within five minutes of being conscious. It was time to change up his routine- and anyway, he’d been getting lax with his public appearances lately. Fury would start hounding him about it soon, so he might as well just get it over with.

He spent the whole morning talking to his PR manager, arranging for interviews and hospital visits, and then after that was all done he set off to Fury’s office, walking with a goal in mind that kept his pace fast and his mind focused. The Director was working through a file when Steve knocked, but he put aside once he saw Steve in front of him.

“Captain,” the man said with a nod, “anything I can d-“

“I need a mission,” Steve blurted, and then coughed awkwardly when Fury’s eyebrows rose, “I- uh- I feel like I’ve been sat around for too long. I’d just like something to occupy myself with, if possible.”

Fury was quiet for a moment, his face creasing into an imperceptible frown. “Any reason, Captain?” He asked.

Steve’s heart did a little flip, but he shook his head firmly. “No sir. Just fancy getting rid of a few more bad guys.”

Fury looked like he was going to push it for a moment, but then he just nodded and reached down into one of his desk drawers. “Lucky for you, we seem to have an abundance of them. I can give you a few high-priority files to go over tonight, and then you can decide which one to take up. I assume you’re going to be wanting to partner with Iron Man?”

Steve paused. He realised that nine times out of ten, that would be exactly what he did. He rarely did missions alone any more unless it required his specific skillset, and whenever they gave him a partner, it was usually Iron Man, if Tony was free. They worked best together.

But Steve… Steve wasn’t sure if he could handle that right now.

“I was thinking maybe Black Widow, actually,” Steve said, resisting the urge to pick at his nails. Fury would be able to spot that nervous tick from a mile away. “If she’s available, of course.”

Again, Fury looked at him quizzically. He seemed to know that something was going on, but couldn’t quite pinpoint what. In the end, though, he didn’t say anything- just pushed the files over the desk. “That should keep you occupied,” he said, eyeing Steve across the table, “call the logistics team when you’ve decided which operation to oversee, and they’ll set everything up for you.”

Steve gave his thanks and put the files into his kitbag, then turned and walked out swiftly. There. Now he had an easy out, if he wanted it. And missions always helped to centre him when things were rough. He’d spent most of his first year out of the ice fighting something or another, after all.

Checking his watch, he sighed to himself as he realised that it was still only midday. He hadn’t quite realized how much time he spent in the tower on his days off until he started trying to avoid it. And it was stupid anyway- Tony wasn’t even there. But that, for some reason, was just as bad as if Tony had been present. Because Steve knew why he wasn’t there, and it was because he was out with Mark. At this Lebanese restaurant that Tony had been saying Mark introduced him to and he’d become obsessed with.  
Steve had never even tried Lebanese food. He preferred to just get a vendor burger, if he was being honest.

Jesus. That kind of spoke for itself, really, didn’t it?

He gritted his teeth and took a sharp left, heading down to his office that he had used approximately twice since being given it. Seeing as he was looking for distractions, he figured he might as well get some work done. And a lot of his files had been ignored lately, in favour of… well. Stuff that didn’t even matter now, he supposed.

He pushed open the door and breathed in the musty air, looking blankly at his desk. It was boring in here. It smelt bad. It was too quiet.

Steve figured he was going to get used to it soon enough, though.

He worked through the afternoon, sorting through report after report until way after the sun had gone down. It was boring work, but it had to be done, and in a way the repetitive motion was soothing. You didn’t have to think, when you did this stuff. Just type and file, type and file. Easy.

His phone rang, and the noise sounding off through the quiet of his room made him jump. Pulling it out of his pocket, he sighed when he saw the contact, but pulled it up to his ear anyway. “Hey, Tony.”

“Where are you?” Tony said, getting straight to the point, concern in his voice, “Doctor Who is about to start and you’re gonna miss it.”

Steve blinked in surprise. “Oh,” he said, “is it really that late?” He looked down at his watch and then made a face, beginning to stand up, “I’ll be fifteen minutes. I’m at SHIELD.”

Tony groaned dramatically, and Steve couldn’t help but smile. “That’s _ages_ , Steve, come on-“

“You have to pay my speeding fines then,” Steve told him with a grin as he snapped his laptop shut.

“Steve, I do that anyway,” Tony told him, and Steve just sighed exasperatedly, “I’ll wait. But hurry. Break some laws if you have to, I don’t care- just flash your identicard or something, it’ll be fine.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s an abuse of my power,” Steve said absently as he walked back out through the corridors. Tony’s laughter was a familiar sound in his ears and Steve couldn’t help but smile at the sound alone. When the other man called off, Steve quickly raced back to his bike and then sped through the city expertly. Doctor Who was the show that Tony and Steve always watched together- mostly because all the rest of their friends just thought it was too corny. Steve himself could agree to an extent, but he liked it anyway. He just thought it was cute. And Tony explained to Steve that he had grown up with it, so no matter how much he complained about it now, he still watched it religiously.

Getting back to the tower was somewhat relieving. It smelt so much nicer than SHIELD, and Steve breathed it in happily as he made his way up to his floor where he knew Tony would be waiting for him. They always watched it there- the communal area was usually too full of stupid friends making fun of it, and Tony’s penthouse felt a little too cool to be homely to Steve, so barely anyone ever actually spent any time in it. Steve’s, according to Tony, was the Goldilocks suite. Just right.

But this time, when he walked back into his room and saw Tony already waiting for him on his bed, legs crossed and a pillow tucked into his stomach, he felt his stomach drop. And not in a good way.

Tony was so comfortable here, in Steve’s space. He was in his pajamas and his hair was damp from his shower, spilling little droplets onto Steve’s pillow. He could see the tag sticking out of his collar _again_ , and it drove Steve mad whenever he saw Tony with it. He’d always tuck it in like his mom had used to do for him and then Tony would grin and say thanks and maybe bump their shoulders together, and Steve’s heart would ache with the surge of affection that overwhelmed him. Usually, it was handleable. Just something Steve was used to.

But this wasn’t usually. Now Steve knew that he’d never have this. Not really. Not in the way he wanted. The hope had gone, and all that was left was the bitter truth.

“Steve?” Tony asked, looking at him curiously as Steve stood, rigid in the doorway, “come on, what are you waiting for? You okay?”

He looked over and nodded, smiling tight. “Fine,” he said, sitting down gingerly, keeping the gap between them large, “just been a long day.”

Tony looked at him sympathetically and, totally disregarding Steve’s attempt at keeping his distance, he tilted sideways and then shuffled up until they were shoulder to shoulder, pulling the remote up from the bed and then flicking on play. Steve did his best to relax- Tony was a person who liked contact, and he always had. This was normal. Undoubtedly he’d shift after five minutes anyway- they both always did. By the end of the program, they’d usually both end up on their stomachs with their faces an inch from the TV screen.

Tony’s shoulder was warm against Steve’s own, and when the title music started to play he shifted downward a little until his cheek was resting against Steve’s shoulder. Steve swallowed, and decidedly didn’t think about it. “How was your day?” He blurted, “I haven’t seen you.”

Tony grunted and waved a hand. “Exhausting, as always,” he said, before stopping and biting his lip a little, “Company’s going through one of those phases, you know. Everything that could go wrong is going wrong, etcetera.”

“Sounds like fun.”

“Yeah.”

Steve nodded understandingly, trying to think of something else to say but failing. Instead, he just settled his head back against the wall and took a breath in, focusing on the TV. He felt as if just talking to Tony had become so hard recently, and he fucking hated that. He knew Tony was noticing it too- even if he hadn’t said anything yet. Tony rarely needed to say things to show how he felt, anyway. It was in his actions, in his eyes.

Steve wished he could be better. He wanted to know how to fix it, but he just had no idea where to begin.

Tiredly, he rubbed at his eyes and yawned. He hadn’t been sleeping well recently, and even though he was a superhuman, it was starting to show. He felt exhausted, and all the paperwork from the day had turned his brain to mush.

Tony tilted his head up and caught him yawning. “How was _your_ day?” He asked inquisitively, sitting up a little, “you’ve been… you’ve been out a lot lately. Haven’t seen much of you.”

Steve shrugged. “No rest for the wicked,” he said with a smile, “and my day was- well- boring, to be honest. Lotta paperwork. I’m kinda wiped, actually.”

Tony smiled fondly at him, nudging him in the midsection with a bony elbow. “You work too hard, Rogers,” he said with a roll of his eyes, “You gotta learn to chill sometimes.”

 _“Hey,”_ Steve gestured around him, “I just got three speeding tickets and two angry commuters flipping me off because I was rushing so fast to come here and ‘chill’. Leave me alone, I’m old. I’m still learning what ‘chill’ even means.”

Tony laughed gently, shaking his head and looking away. “Don’t act like you don’t know exactly what all the internet slang means by now. I know you have a tumblr, Rogers.”

Steve blushed. “It’s informative.”

“It’s poooorn-“

Steve huffed and shoved him gently, sending him toppling over to the side as Tony laughed at him again. He himself got caught between a chuckle and a yawn, and when he next opened his eyes Tony was looking at him fondly. “We don’t have to watch this tonight,” he said, gesturing to the TV, “you can just go to sleep-“

“No, it’s fine,” Steve said with a smile, shaking his head. He undoubtedly wouldn’t manage to get much sleep anyway. “This is Doctor Who night.”

Tony rolled his eyes like that was a corny thing to say, but didn’t comment, purely because he had no leg to stand on. Steve knew Tony dropped everything for Doctor Who night as well.

They settled down again, this time into a more comfortable silence as Tony turned the volume up a few notches, the side of his body pressed into Steve’s, warm and comforting. He smelled good; like apples from that expensive shampoo he always swore by. He felt like coming home, more so than Steve’s actual room did.

Maybe they could still do this. Nothing else, no more. Steve could take the hurt if it meant that he got to come back and be with Tony in this way. Even if it was just as friends.

As the program played on, Steve found his head feeling heavier and heavier, his eyelids starting to droop. Ironic, how thoughts of Tony had been the what prevented him from sleeping for days, but now that Tony was right there on his bed, in his space, Steve had decided now was a good time to crash. He knew exactly why that was, but he just didn’t fancy thinking of it too deeply. It’d only hurt him more.

He sighed to himself and then pushed his head back up, trying to focus on what was happening in front of him. The sonic was currently being cursed out for being unable to work on wood, and Steve laughed quietly to himself as Tony just shook his head and starting muttering about the quality of a piece of sonic machinery that was bested by a tree.

The next time Steve looked up at the screen, however, Doctor Who was no longer playing. In fact, it was infomercials, for some reason. Steve frowned, wondering if they’d changed the channel by accident.

However, he quickly found his answer when he discovered that he was also sat in a different position to what he remembered. He was tilted sideways, and his head rested somewhere warm and soft. With a lurch, he realised that he must have fallen asleep against Tony’s side, and now his fucking face was buried in the other man’s shoulder.

Oh God.

Steve shot up like a bullet and he heard Tony yell in surprise, jerking away. “Shit,” he cursed, “sorry, I didn’t- I thought that-“

“Hey,” Tony said soothingly, his hand settling on Steve’s shoulder, “it’s alright. You just fell asleep for a bit. You’re good. You’re just in the tower, in your room.”

Steve blinked, wondering what Tony was doing for a second before he came to the understanding that Tony must have thought Steve had just gotten spooked upon waking. A fairly common occurrence for people with jobs like Steve and Tony had.

He supposed that too, was an easier explanation that what had really started running through his head when he’d woken up.

Taking a deep breath, he looked down at his lap and then bit his lip hard enough that he tasted copper. Since when had every touch between him and Tony become so dangerous? So… so hard to bear? He thought he could deal with it, he was trying to deal with it- but every single time Tony got close, all the thoughts that had plagued him on that horrible night where it had all gone wrong just came flooding right back. He couldn’t look at Tony and not think about how much of a great time he was having with Mark. It had been over a month now, and the two of them were still seeing eachother. Frequently. And Steve had been trying, Jesus, he’d been trying so hard to act normal about it, but it wasn’t working.

Because when he was alone with Tony, like this, and his head was laying on the other man’s shoulder as he napped because Tony was one of the only people that Steve felt safe enough to sleep around, he just knew that it was wrong.

Tony didn’t want what Steve did. And for Steve to take advantage of that was… it was terrible of him. If Tony had any idea about the stuff Steve thought about him...

It wasn’t fair. To either of them.

“Sorry,” Steve muttered, looking over Tony’s shoulder, “sorry, sorry, I just-“

“Hey,” Tony said soothingly, his thumb stroking across Steve’s neck and fuck, _fuck_ , all he wanted to do was move back into his space, bury his head into Tony’s neck and be held by him, “hey, it’s okay-“

“No, it’s… sorry, I have to- I should…” Steve shook out all the panic in his head and attempted a smile, thinking about Mark and how he would probably be waiting for Tony to come back to him tonight so they could kiss and laugh with eachother and simply be with one another in a way that Steve had never truly experienced with _anyone_ , “sorry. I’m just really tired. I think I should probably get to bed, you know? I feel like you probably have more important things to do than act as my pillow.”

Tony looked at him, his face not changing a shade. “No,” he said, “no I don’t.”

Steve wanted to fucking cry.

“You should get some rest too,” Steve told him, slipping off his bed and then making his way to his bathroom, his eyes firmly on the door, “it’s late.”

He couldn’t see the man’s face, but he didn’t need to in order to know that Tony probably looked confused as hell. Steve didn’t blame him. His moods had been all over the place lately, and Tony had probably been on the receiving end of more than just a few of them.

“Okay,” Tony said eventually, his voice concerned, “are you sure you don’t want me to stay for a little longer, Steve?”

“Nah,” Steve said airily, _you’ve got someone to go back to._

There was silence, where Steve debated the pros and cons of shutting the bathroom door on Tony. But it would be too rude, and honestly, this wasn’t Tony’s fault. Not at all. All of this- these stupid feelings, the misplaced sense of hurt and rejection- that was all on Steve.

And it was time that he fixed it. Properly. Starting now.

“Night, Tony,” he said with a note of finality in his voice, leaning down into the sink to wash his face. He scrubbed thoroughly, shutting his eyes and letting the cold water sting at his cheeks.

“I-“ Tony began, is if he wanted to say something more. But he didn’t, and for that, Steve was grateful. “Night Steve,” was all he said in the end, his voice subdued.

When Steve looked up and checked his room, Tony was gone. He couldn’t decide whether the response he felt after was relief or pain.

Maybe both.

 

 

 

 

_

 

 

 

 

Tony called him the same time next week, asking where he was, because Doctor Who was starting and he couldn’t eat all the chips by himself.

Steve told him he wasn’t going to be able to make it that week.

 

 

 

 

_

 

 

 

 

The mission that he took up from Fury was intense. There was a HYDRA cell operating in Midwest of the US that had been getting strangely up close and personal with all of the comings and goings of the Avengers, and so it had been Steve’s job to head in there with Nat and take them down. They’d gone with a small other team of SHEILD agents and headed out before daybreak.

Tony had been over at Mark’s. He probably wouldn’t even notice that Steve was gone.

“You strapped in?” Natasha asked as she tightened his parachute and triple-checked the safeties.

“Yes, I’m fine,” Steve told her fondly, nudging her away, “no idea why you’re so fussy. A guy jumps outta’ plane without a chute _one time_ , and you won’t just let him forget it?”

She shot him a look. “There’s no sea here- just a lot of cows. I don’t think they’ll act as a very good way to break your fall, if I’m being honest,” She shrugged and then added, “plus Tony would kill me if he found out I’d let you jump at this height without safety gear. I personally would _like_ to see you try and make it. But you know what he’s like.”

Steve didn’t answer, and he felt Natasha’s gaze settle on him for a second. He really hoped she wouldn’t-

“How are things with you two, anyway?”

-ask him about Tony.

Great.

He looked down, fastening the laces on his boots. “Fine,” he told her, “things are fine.”

Another pause. Then, “I think he misses you, you know. You’ve been gone quite a lot lately.”

His fingers stumbled over the lace, and he cursed quietly before restarting. “Just been busy,” he said with a shrug, “anyway, he’s… you know. Having fun. With Mark.”

Which was true. Although Steve had still barely had more than three conversations with the man yet, the guy was spending progressively more and more time in the tower with all of them. His blend of tea was in their cupboards, now. Tony had special times reserved for date night. It was, incidentally, the same day of the week that Steve had always planned to ask Tony out himself.

Which was purely coincidence, obviously, 1 in 7 chance and all that- but you know. It still hurt, funnily enough.

“Mark’s a cool guy,” Natasha said with a nod, and Steve’s jaw wound tighter, “but he doesn’t laugh when Tony makes the milk joke.”

Steve, despite himself, huffed at the memory. “To be fair, that’s not really funny to anyone except me and Tony,” he told her wryly, before adding, “it’s barely even funny to _us_ any more.”

“And yet he still says it every time you go shopping,” Natasha commented cryptically, turning her back to him and then opening up the weapons draw, “I wonder why.”

He pulled a face, but didn’t bother to respond. Sometimes, Natasha’s comments were better left alone. He just focused on getting all his equipment ready and making sure that all the checks had been done. The important stuff.

The milk joke _was_ pretty funny though- and when he accidentally found himself chuckling on the other side of the room, he knew as soon as he looked up that Natasha would just be staring at him with those stupid raised eyebrows and exasperatedly pursed lips. He flipped her off without looking.

“Talk to him,” Natasha said, restarting up the conversation fifteen minutes later, just as they were about to jump from the plane, “I know you miss him too.”

 Her voice carried away with the wind, but Steve heard her anyway, and he just looked to her with a tired smile. It wasn’t really about who missed who- it was about what was best in the long run. For both of them.

If Steve wanted to try and get over him, it was best if he got away from him first. Because being with Tony, being around him… it was addictive. It was so easy. And Steve couldn’t let himself be trapped like that.

“It’s not like I’m _ignoring_ him,” Steve told her weakly, adjusting his helmet. And it was true- he wasn’t. He still talked to Tony, still laughed with him and worked with him on the field. He just… wasn’t able to hang out as much any more. There were lots of things to do, being an Avenger and all. Steve had been swamped- so swamped that his phone kept going to voicemail when Tony called, and he’d given his season ticket to Mark so that he could go and watch the baseball with Tony instead of Steve. It was just the nice thing to do, really. If Steve didn’t have the time to go, then he might as well give it to someone who did. And someone who Tony quite clearly enjoyed spending his time with. So yeah- Steve was just busy, that was all. Being an _Avenger_ was the thing that was taking up his time, not being hopelessly, desperately in love. Obviously.

God, that was flimsy. That even sounded flimsy in his own fucking head- never mind what Tony must be hearing every time Steve told him that. Tony always always made time for Steve- and he had double the responsibilities.

Steve really fucking hated himself, sometimes.

“I’m trying here, Tash,” he told her, looking down, “I really am. It’s just hard.”

She sighed, patting him on the shoulder with a gentle hand. “I know you are,” she agreed, “I’m sorry.”

He looked out, into the open Midwest desert that stretched out below them both. “I’m still in love with him,” he told her bluntly, “I’m trying everything I can but I just. I can’t stop. I don’t know if I’ll ever stop.”

“So what happens if this plan doesn’t work?” She asked, looking at him with her most serious expression. Sometimes, she seemed centuries older than her face ever showed. There was history in those eyes- pain and understanding and wisdom. Natasha had been through a lot in her life.

He looked to her with a sad smile. “I don’t know, Tash,” he murmured, “I really don’t know.”

She looked at him for a long time, before shutting her eyes and nodding once. “Whatever you need to do to be happy, Steve,” she said firmly, “I will support you in. Just… try not to hurt Tony too much along the way, okay? He’s vulnerable- no matter what he tries to say.”

Steve’s mind flashed back to all the conversations he’d had in the dead of night; Tony clutching a cup of steaming coffee, dead eyes staring unblinking at the table as he’d spoken of all the people who had left, betrayed, hurt him. His first best friend had used him for expensive pap shots that got him drug money. His first boyfriend outed him to the world for fifteen minutes of fame. A woman called Sunset had dated Tony for months, and then stolen all of his Stark Industries designs after using his trust for her against him. A lot of people weren’t kind to Tony Stark.

Steve was repulsed at the very thought of being one of them.

“You know that hurting him is the last thing I’d ever want to do,” he stated vehemently, fists curling, “I’d- it’s not… I’m just trying-“

“I get it, Steve,” her hand fell on his shoulder and squeezed through the armor, “I know. Let’s just focus up on the mission for now, huh? We can deal with your life problems later.”

He took a moment, but then nodded firmly. She was right. There was a time and a place for all of this, but it wasn’t here. With a small and steadying breath in, he peered out of the aircraft and then raised a hand, smiling wryly. “Ladies first,” he informed her.

She grinned, and then a second later there were two firm hands shoving him in the back, and out he went, flying through the atmosphere with the wind racing up to meet him. He laughed during freefall, turning to his back to shoot her his middle finger as she fell after him a few seconds later.

They made it to earth without a hitch, and after that, getting through the facility was fairly easy. It wasn’t nearly as well protected as some of the other fortresses they’d infiltrated, and him, Nat and the rest of the specialised team cut through all their defences like tissue paper. Once inside, their job was merely to retrieve as much information as they could and then destroy all the research. With Tony, it may have been fairly easier- he could wipe a computer server faster than he could get himself dressed- but Natasha did the job efficiently too, and Steve couldn’t fault her for it. She was a woman of many terrifying talents.

“We’re gonna have to go and search the building anyway- see if there’s any paper evidence,” Nat told him when she was done, “HYDRA have a history of backing up their data on hardware. Makes it difficult for us to trace it all.”

Steve nodded, deciding which floors he’d take and then hefting his shield back into defensive position as he began to move again. They’d taken out most of the defence, but there would undoubtedly be scientists and other stragglers still hiding in the lower sections. And they could pack a punch if you weren’t alert.

Steve moved stealthily, keeping quiet as he inspected each room with delicacy. It was mostly just labs or computer rooms, now all shut down from the Virus that Black Widow had implemented. There were some that looked like they were used for experiments however, and when Steve entered into one of them, he got an unnerving sense of déjà vu.

The room was cold; that was one of the first things that he noticed. His breath crystallised in front of him and he tensed a little, a small shake running up his spine. He frowned at the setup of the strange container in the middle, the futuristic looking panels all around the room, and various empty vials that scattered themselves across medical trays. He prowled forward and then picked one of the ones that was locked into the machine up carefully, unlocking it from its casing in order to observe the remnants left behind in it. It was a strange dark-green and viscus, and from the way that it was connected to the rest of the machine, it looked as if it had already been injected into a test subject. Steve couldn’t be sure it was human, but going by the way the container was proportioned, it was definitely looking that way.

He took a few steps back, observing the chamber. There was something unerringly familiar about it- Steve was pretty sure he’d never seen this exact machine before, but it seemed to be ringing a distant warning bell in his mind, and that couldn’t be ignored. Cocking his head and frowning deeply, he wracked his memory and tried to come up with a-

Wait.

His eyes flew wide open as the realisation assaulted him, and he tapped a finger to his ear rapidly to switch on the earpiece.

“Widow,” he snapped into his comm quickly, “Widow, I think I’ve found the root of their investigations.”

“What’ve you got?”

He said nothing for a moment, simply taking his hands to the front of the machine and forcing it open. Once he saw the straps and equipment inside, his suspicions were confirmed. “They’re trying to replicate the super solider serum,” he said darkly, “they’ve got a whole mock-up of what I went through, in a lab on floor zero. Place looks abandoned, but I think they left in a hurry. There’s still some evidence here.”

“Copy,” she said, her voice tight as she barked orders to the others. With no other help Steve could offer here, he moved on, this time keeping his shield held a little tighter. This was not the first time that someone had attempted to recreate the serum. It would undoubtedly not be the last. But whenever a second attempt was made, there was always one constant:

It never ended well.

He prowled the perimeter of the halls, checking for sound and pushing open each door he visited. Most of them were uninteresting, wiped-out computers or rooms for weapons storage. It was only when Steve reached the end of the corridor that he saw a door with about the double the locks as usual. All of the electrical ones had been disconnected now, but Steve could still see some hefty manual ones blocking his way.

He grimaced. Locks always meant that there were either things worth protecting, or things worth hiding. Either way, Steve was going to find out what it was soon enough. With a heavy swing, he landed the edge of his shield on the mechanism once, twice, three times until it gave way and groaned, crumpling under his massive force. He nodded to himself, and then pushed through swiftly, shield raised and ready to attack.

There was no one there. However, that wasn’t to say it was empty. Far from it.

Steve’s mouth dropped open in momentary shock, looking around the large room and seeing his face, seeing Tony’s, seeing Natasha’s and Bruce’s and Clint’s and Thor’s and almost everyone that Steve knew in this day and age staring back at him. Steve’s was by far the largest- tendrils of red string expanding all over the walls, connecting to different faces, different bits of information. There was so much here- receipts and phone conversations and parts of what looked to be SHIELD files on him. Steve stepped forward, his fingers trailing over the bits of string in morbid fascination. Someone had gone into a lot of effort to create this- that much was very obvious. Upon closer inspection, he discovered that most of the pieces of information were something to do with his anatomy, his medical records, general biology and the like. From grocery receipts to what looked to be actual hair- everything was here.

He looked left, falling upon Tony’s face. There was almost as much information- although for him there seemed to be a different motif. There were extracts of some of what looked to be his scientific papers, blurry pictures of him and Steve together, and records from SHIELD that showed Tony having accessed the Project Rebirth research. Out of all of the profiles, it looked like Steve’s, Tony’s and Helen Cho’s were the largest ones of all, and it didn’t take Steve long to connect the dots.

HYDRA had come to the conclusion that those three people were the ones who knew the most about the serum. And now they were all, apparently, being observed.

Just as Steve was about to comm in and inform Black Widow of the information, he heard a faint rustling sound to his right and snapped his head over in that direction with narrowed eyes. It was just another wall covered in faces and dirty bits of evidence- but when Steve stepped forward and listened in close, he heard the same noise again.

He pressed his hand into the wall, trailing his fingertips lightly over the surface and scanning it with sharp eyes. He knew what he was looking for, cliched as it was, and after a few seconds he found it. An almost imperceptible latch, hidden by papers and cleverly camouflaged with the panelling of the wall. Steve grinned, hoisting his shield up and then raising his knee to his chest, kicking the door open with all the power he could muster. The metal collapsed in on itself immediately under his force and then careered forward, flying across the newly discovered room and then hitting the opposing wall a second later. Steve marched in and his eyes flew rapidly around the room, spotting multiple things at once.

Thing one, was that there was someone else in the room with him. A scientist by the looks of his lab-coat, scurrying away from the flying door with panicked haste.

Thing two, was that it looked as if this man had been getting ready to dispose of all his evidence. Piles and piles of papers and files were stacked on one of the desks to the side, and the whole room was ransacked like he’d been cleaning away in a hurry. Steve only managed to give it a very rushed glance, and for the tiniest slivers of a second he was certain that he’d seen a HYDRA Scientists’ file with an ominously familiar face stamped over the cover of it- but it was too quick for him to be sure of, and he’d moved on to the third fact before he could linger on it and confirm any of his half-formed suspicions.

The third fact, by the way, was the fact that there was a weapon pointed at his face.

He barely even had time to register it. Even Steve, with his heightened senses, had been trying to focus on too many things at once. The gun pointed at his face came as a surprise, and he barely had time to throw himself sideways and lift his shield before it was being fired at him.

“HAIL HYDRA!” The man yelled, shooting off a rapid spray of bullets from his weapon. Steve hid under his shield and covered until the man’s gun ran dry, then cautiously poked his head up to see where the man had gone and incapacitate him. Steve clocked him instantly: the scientist was at the desk again, lighting a match with frantic fingers and then letting it fall-

“No!” Steve said in frustration, aiming his shield and sending it flying over to the target- but it was too late. The man yelled and fell at the impact of the vibranium hitting him square in the chest, but the match had already set the papers alight. There must have been some sort of gas already poured over them because they lit up like a Christmas tree and Steve had to crawl away from the huge inferno that sprang rapidly through the small room. The man was lying unconscious in the corner, and with a spat curse Steve jumped to his feet and rushed over to him, picking him up and tossing him out of danger. They were going to need him for interrogation.

He looked back the raging flames with a squint, trying to pick out any information before it was lost forever- but it was no use. Whatever had been there, whatever oddly familiar face Steve had been sure he’d seen was gone, lost to the insatiable flames.

With an irritated growl, Steve retreated back with the unresponsive scientist now hauled over her shoulder. Grabbing a nearby fire extinguisher, Steve sprayed the flames out before they could lick their way into the other room and destroy any more evidence, and then leaned back against the wall once it was all done with a small sigh. His shoulder ached.

There wasn’t really much else to be seen after that. They’d found what they’d come for, and all the rest of the science division went relatively quietly once they realised that SHIELD had them surrounded. The mission was declared a success by the end of the afternoon, leaving them to all go home. Steve was quiet for the trip back, thinking over what they had found. He wished he’d taken more time to look at what had been on that desk- it was driving him mad. Sure, it could have killed him if he’d not turned in time, but still.

Steve sighed, rubbing his forehead and then leaning back gingerly against the side of the helicarrier. Nat was still sorting through all the information she’d pulled from their servers, but they all knew they weren’t going to be getting that far without Tony’s help back at base. For now, he was just focusing on trying to have a nap before he got back home and found sleep far more difficult to come by.

He wondered whether HYDRA already had someone, running around with a mock-up of the Supersoldier Serum in their veins. The thought made him shudder.

It was late evening by the time they got back to the Tower. Everyone was in their own quarters, and Natasha quickly followed suit, wishing him goodnight with a pat on the arm and then slipping quietly into the elevator. After that, Steve was alone.

He breathed a sigh of relief and then sagged against the counter. Now, finally, he could get the fucking bullet out.

He hadn’t even noticed it had hit him until he’d picked up the scientist and been struck by a throbbing pain in his shoulder. He must have gotten one in before Steve had fully managed to lift his shield and cover, and Steve had been trying to ignore the pain ever since. It wasn’t a big deal, so he didn’t want to take it to medical- especially not after finding out that HYDRA were somehow getting into all his records. It was a little silly, maybe, but sue him, Steve was just feeling a tad more paranoid tonight than most.

Anyway. It was only a bullet. Steve had taken out worse from his body.

Grimacing, he quickly pulled off his SHIELD-issue shirt and then made his way over to the sink. The first aid kit was stashed under the counter for occurrences just like this- and what with all their day jobs, it was most likely to have everything he’d need. Bullet wounds were the equivalent of scraped knees for them.

He located it and within a minute, he was starting to clean the area around the wound. Unfortunately, he realised with dismay that the bullet hadn’t actually gone straight through, and so was still lodged somewhere in his shoulder. Gross.

Steve winced. The removal was worse than the actual penetration, if he was being honest. Especially with his advanced healing. His muscle had probably already begun to heal around the bullet, which… yeah, wasn’t fun to deal with. Steve wished he’d checked earlier- if he’d known, he would have just pulled it out before the serum could start working.

Dammit. This wasn’t going to be fun.

Taking a moment to sigh, Steve searched for the tweezers and hastily plucked them from the kit, sterilizing them with rubbing alcohol and then leaning over the sink. Of course, just as the cool metal touched his exposed skin, he heard the smooth sliding of elevator doors and turned in surprise, listening as a familiar laughter drifted through the room.

A few seconds later, Steve caught sight of Tony and Mark as they stepped out of the elevator, wrapped up in one another and kissing passionately. Mark was being pulled forward by his tie as Tony hurried them over in the direction of the kitchen where Steve was. He felt frozen, stomach immediately turning in horror. Suddenly, the pain in his shoulder felt a hell of a lot worse, and he just stood there like a statue, not knowing what to do as Tony laughed and peppered kisses across Mark’s cheek. “Come on, just let me get a drink and then we can head up to my-“

He stopped talking when he turned and clocked Steve, who was staring at both of them like a fucking pervert as they made out messily on the way to Tony’s room. They must have just gotten back from their date; they were dressed for a fancy setting, restaurant maybe, and Tony looked good. Of course he looked good. He always looked good.

For a second, Steve just fucking hated him. Hated everything in the entire damn world. He just wanted to pull out the bullet in peace and then go to sleep, dammit, and now he had to deal with this on top of everything. A new, different, _worse_ layer of pain to go with the bullet wound. Just his fucking luck.

“Steve,” Tony said, eyes going instantly to the oozing injury in the centre of his shoulder. He dropped Mark’s tie immediately, stepping forward, his focus now entirely on Steve. “You’re hurt.”

Mark was looking at him slightly warily, like he no longer knew what to do. There were little tufts of hair that stuck up at the front of his face; the evidence of Tony’s fingers having run their way through it, and something terrible burned in Steve’s gut as he looked at it. Of course, as he did pretty much every single day now, Steve just shoved all that feeling down and gave him the best smile he could manage, before turning back to Tony. He just needed to be alone. He needed… not to see them. Happy. Together.  “It’s fine- I’ve got it. Don’t worry about me.”

Rather than even bothering to acknowledge his previous sentence, Tony turned back to Mark. “You go up,” he said with a wave, “I gotta stay down here for a bit, okay?”

Steve spluttered. “Tony, you really don’t need to-“

“Steve,” Tony told him firmly, “there is a bullet inside you.”

Mark was looking back to Steve again, his eyes wide. “It’s _still in there?”_ He asked in horror, “shouldn’t you be… shouldn’t you be at a hospital or something?”

“My thoughts exactly,” Tony said a little snappily, taking a few steps forward and then grabbing the medkit, “but seeing as he isn’t, we might as well do it here before the damn thing heals any further, huh?” He turned back to Mark, raising his eyebrows. “You can go up to bed now. I’ll be with you soon.”

“Tony-“ Steve tried again weakly, but Tony, once more, didn’t even acknowledge him- just accepted the goodbye kiss from Mark and then turned back to Steve, looking down at the medical kit with a deep frown. Steve just clamped his mouth shut, trying to ignore the now-familiar sensation of sickness in his stomach at the sight of the two of them. It felt like a physical workout, trying to keep control of all that emotion. Hey- maybe he could make it into a sport. Emotional-deadlifts or something. Ha ha.

Tony looked up at him, and then smacked his good shoulder, pushing him out of his little spiral of thought. Steve raised his eyebrows in surprise. “What were you goddamn thinking?” Was what Tony hissed, pulling the tweezers deftly from Steve’s hands. Their fingers brushed, and Steve most definitely did not acknowledge that. “This looks like it’s been in for _hours_. Why didn’t you just get it extracted by medical?”

Steve sighed, hands clenching around the counter. “Long story,” he muttered, “there’s… I thought it had gone straight through. That it would just be a patch job, you know- one bandage at the front, one at the back. Apparently I was wrong.”

From the look on Tony’s face, he could tell that was a weak excuse, and then sighed again. “HYDRA has been looking into my medical files,” he admitted a second later, “I saw- they’re trying to recreate project rebirth, and they’ve got SHIELD files on me in there. And I have no idea how they accessed them, but I intend to find out. Anyway- guess I was just feeling a little paranoid.”

“They’re trying to _what?”_ Tony asked in a low voice, “Did you see how far they were?”

“We’ve got a load of encrypted files for you, so you can check just that,” Steve told him with a weak smile, “sorry, your schedule might be a little packed for a day or two.”

Tony just grunted, before lifting the tweezers smoothly up to Steve’s chest. A second before they touched down, however, Steve’s hand snapped up and grabbed his wrist gently, halting him. When Tony looked up at him questioningly, Steve swallowed.

“You know, I really am fine,” he said quietly, “I can do this on my own. You don’t need to… you were busy, I’m not-“

“Steve,” Tony said in exasperation, “please shut up. You wouldn’t ever leave me in this state. Don’t expect me to do anything different for you.”

Steve had no other excuses he could give to make Tony not touch him, so he just gritted his teeth and shut his eyes. He’d done this before. He knew how to handle it. It was just Tony helping him out. Injuries were easier to handle when it was someone else fixing them. Tony was a good friend, and so Tony was going to-

Lean in very close and rest the flat of his palm against the centre of Steve’s chest as his other one began to delve in smoothly to the fast-healing wound.

Steve hissed, caught between the jolt of static electricity from Tony’s touch and the stabbing pain of the tweezers as they dug into his exposed wound. It hurt like a motherfucker and Steve clenched his eyes shut, breathing heavily through his teeth as Tony went deeper.

“Shhh,” Tony said soothingly, his fingers stroking gently over Steve’s sternum, “it’s okay, I’m getting nearer, just hold out Soldier. I’ve got you.”

Oh God, it was agony. And Steve wasn’t even talking about the fucking bullet. Tony’s hand was pressed into his bare skin, right above his heart- his face was fucking _inches_ from Steve’s own, he was calling Steve ‘soldier’ and saying ‘I’ve got you’ like Steve was just supposed to take that and be _okay_ with it.

Fuck. It hurt. It hurt.

He looked up at the ceiling, unable to meet Tony’s eye or even look in his direction. This wasn’t fair. He’d just seen the other man about to have sex with Mark. That was evidence enough that Steve needed to get the fuck over himself. But every time _, every single time_ Tony got close, it was like he was just snapped right back to square one. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t escape it. Loving Tony was just as much a part of him now as the super-soldier serum that ran through his veins.

There was a jolt of twisting agony that sent him tumbling back into reality, and he grunted harshly as Tony clamped down on the bullet. “I think it’s still whole, which is a plus,” Tony murmured to himself, his hand never stopping the stroking motion across Steve’s chest. He could see that blood was starting to seep from the freshly opened wound and grimaced.

“You’re gonna get blood all over your suit,” Steve muttered, absently tucking Tony’s gold tie over his shoulder so it didn’t get messy.

Tony looked up at him, his face both exasperated and impossibly fond. “You know what?” he said with a small smile, “Not actually at the top of my list of priorities right now, Steve.”

Steve chuckled tiredly, and it quickly turned into a barely held-back yelp as Tony tugged smoothly, pulling the bullet out with a disgusting squelching sound as it left his flesh. Not the most attractive he’d ever looked, he was sure. “There we go,” Tony said, his voice turning back to soothing and gentle as his hand moved to Steve’s shoulder and settled there, “it’s out, it’s done. You’re okay.” When Steve shut his eyes and leaned his head forward in exhaustion, he felt it brush across Tony’s shoulder for a moment. The urge to just let it rest there was almost overwhelming, but Steve resisted this time, pushing back jerkily and refusing to feel bad at the small flash of hurt that crossed Tony’s face.

“Thanks,” he muttered, plucking the bullet from the tweezers and then turning, tossing it into the bin carelessly. One less problem dealt with. “I guess you should- you should go back to your room then. I’ll just-“

“What?” Tony said with a perplexed expression, “no, we’re not done yet. I’ve gotta bandage it- unless, of course, you intend to get blood all over your bed while you sleep.”

Oh, for God’s sake- “Tony, it’s fine, I can do it by myself-“

“Steve, Jesus Christ, I know that you’re suddenly desperate to see as little of me as you possibly can, but you’re _hurt_ , alright? Let me help you!” Tony snapped, his face suddenly angry as he flapped his hands in frustration and then glared up at Steve.

His stomach plummeted. “I-“

“-Don’t,” Tony interrupted before Steve could even begin, something resigned in his tone as he lifted his hand, “just… stay still, Steve. I don’t need to hear it.” Tony shook his head, voice going flat as he looked away and grabbed the bandages. Steve didn’t know what to say as Tony prepared a fresh set of gauze and cleaned his hands again with more rubbing alcohol. He just watched, feeling more out of sync with Tony Stark than he had done since meeting him.

Tony wasn’t looking him in the eye. “Can you pull your shoulder back a little, please,” he said, fingers pressing down feather-light on Steve’s skin.

Steve obliged, even though it hurt. Tony nodded and then got to work, his touch soft and caring as he worked.

“I do want to see you,” Steve said in the end, his voice going a little wobbly. It wasn’t a lie. _Of_ _course_ Steve wanted to see him. Steve wanted to see him every day, in every single way he could. In the mornings when he was tired and sleepy in Steve’s bed, smiling as Steve laid small kisses up and down his spine, in the night when he was pressed into the mattress, mouth open in a silent shout of pleasure as he came. He wanted to see Tony when he was being absolutely impossible, he wanted to see Tony even when all he felt like doing was fucking screaming at him for being stupid and reckless and dumb, because seeing him still meant he was alive and breathing, not buried six feet underground like almost everyone else Steve had ever loved.  
Steve wanted to see him too much, and that was the fucking problem.

But Tony just laughed, entirely humourless. “You gave your season ticket to Mark,” was all he answered, his voice short and sharp.

Steve didn’t really know what to say to that. It was true, after all. “Are you going with him?” Was what came out, despite the fact it was entirely irrelevant.

Another small huff. “No.”

“Oh.”

More awkward silence fell between them. Steve swallowed and bit his lip when Tony carefully set the bandage over the wound, eyes fixed on it with the intense concentration of someone who genuinely gave a shit.

Steve felt like such a tool.

“Is it something I’ve done?” Tony asked quietly, and he’d finished bandaging Steve up by that point but his hand remained, pressed up against Steve’s chest like a taunt. When Steve looked down at him, he saw the hurt on his face that he realised must have been festering there for weeks at that point. Growing every time Steve ignored his call or couldn’t make it to one of their days out. “Because Steve, if it is, I can try to change. I promise I will. I know I’m not perfect, but I want to know what it is so I can-“

“-You haven’t done anything wrong, Tony,” Steve blurted quickly, desperate to assure him but helpless as to how he was supposed to make it better, “it wasn’t you. It’s… it’s just something I’m going through.”

 _“Tell me,”_ Tony said, almost begging, “Steve, I’m your friend- if you’re struggling I want to try and make it better!”

“You can’t,” Steve said miserably, shaking his head, “Tony, you just _can’t_. I’m sorry. I- I do appreciate the offer though.”

For a second, it looked like Tony was going to try again. The look of hurt on his face was enough to make Steve want to punch a wall. Or himself.

This was a fucking mess.

“Okay,” Tony said quietly, looking down at his shoes in defeat, “okay. Sorry. I should…” he waved numbly back to the elevator, nodding jerkily, “I should go then.”

Steve couldn’t help himself- he had to make Tony feel better. Just a little bit. He didn’t care whether it hurt him, didn’t care if it sent his whole plan for distance up in smoke. Tony was upset. Steve could never just leave him like that. He stumbled forward and circled his fingers around Tony’s arm, holding him gently. Tony turned and looked up at him, and Steve just swallowed down the survival instinct, the voice telling him it was a bad idea.

“You wanna watch a movie with me tomorrow?” He asked with a small smile, “We could go grab something to eat later if you want, too.”

Tony stared at him. “I don’t need your pity, Steve-“

“-it’s not pity,” Steve said desperately, “I… I just miss you.”

For a moment, he thought Tony would refuse on principal. Steve wouldn’t blame him for it, really. But he didn’t- instead, he nodded slowly, giving Steve a half smile that was tinted with underlying sadness.

“I miss you too,” he said earnestly, and God, it was hurting already, “and I’d like that, yeah. If you’re feeling up for it,” he nodded to the wound on Steve’s shoulder and then huffed, “I mean, you _have_ just been shot.”

Steve smiled. “By tomorrow, I doubt it will even be there.”

“Alright, no need to rub it in, Cap,” Tony told him with a small roll of his eyes. They both stayed where they were for a second- Steve’s hand wrapped around Tony’s arm, their bodies close together- and then Tony seemed to snap out of it, blinking and stepping away.

Steve pretended to himself that it was easy to let go of Tony. But he was lying.

“I guess I’ll see you tomorrow, then,” Tony said quietly, “you should- you should get some sleep. Been a long day.”

“Yeah,” Steve nodded, rubbing the back of his neck, “yeah, I will. Thanks for patching me up.”

“No problem.” Tony stuffed his hands into his pockets and then licked his lips again. Once more, they caught eachother’s eyes.

Steve, for a moment, wondered what Tony would say if Steve begged him to stay. Just for a little while longer.

He’d probably laugh. As if Steve even deserved that, at this point.

“Night, Tony,” he said instead, turning away and then making to pull a cup from the cupboard.

He knew that he didn’t imagine the small sigh Tony made behind him. “Night, Steve,” he responded, and then with the sound of expensive leather brogues against wooden flooring, Tony was gone.

Steve shut his eyes and leaned his head against the cupboard. Somewhere behind him, the clock struck 1am.

 

 

 

 

_

 

 

 

 

-And then when the clock struck 3am, Steve’s head snapped up lightning-fast from the kitchen table where he’d been napping, and he felt his mouth drop open in horror.

The face.

The face on the file on the table.

 

It had been Mark.

 

All of a sudden, Steve was absolutely sure of it. He had no idea how he’d come to that conclusion in the middle of a fitful nap, but for a split second there was a burning, raging certainty that told him it was true. It _had to be_ true- what other excuse was there for the fact that Mark had come into Tony’s life a few months ago and had already managed to assimilate himself so fully within the team? He was a spy. A plant. It was the only option, and Steve could remember the face- longer hair, different name on the tag-line, maybe, but it was him. It was Mark.

Steve was up, stumbling out of his seat and sprinting to the stairs before his brain had even fully woken up. All he knew was that Mark was HYDRA, and Mark was sleeping with Tony, and so Tony was in danger and Steve had to save him.

He leaped up the stairs ten at a time, bouncing off the corners of the walls, not stopping once. His eyes were panicked and wild, his breath was coming in short. God, how had it taken him so long to register it? He knew the face had been familiar. He knew that it had been bugging him. He should have worked it out sooner.

But as he made it up to Tony’s penthouse, he found himself starting to slow down a little as his brain fully kicked into gear. How could he be sure, after all? It had barely even been a proper glimpse- a fraction of a second, maybe not even that. And Mark was attractive, but he was pretty stereotypical in regards to his looks. It could’ve been anyone. Steve could only have been thinking it was him because… well. Because he was bitter and he wanted a reason to hate the guy. That wasn’t enough to go bursting into Tony’s room and throwing him out of the window.

Steve bit his lip. He was… for a moment, he’d been certain. But now, who knew?  Steve was well aware that he was totally unable to be objective in this situation. Mark was normal, and Steve knew that because Tony would almost certainly have personally vetted the guy before even letting him into the tower. He was always careful like that.

But…

Fuck. Steve couldn’t forget that burning conviction that he’d felt, even if it had only been for a second. What if he was right? What if Mark wasn’t actually who he said he was, and Tony was in horrible danger? Steve wouldn’t be able to live with himself if that were the case- if he knew, and still did nothing.

 _You’re being an idiot,_ Steve told himself with an angry huff, _you’re being a jealous, bitter idiot._

God, this was pathetic. He was really trying to call Mark a HYDRA operative because he was fucking Tony and not Steve. Some hero he was.

Steve looked down at the floor, shutting his eyes and resisting the urge to groan. He didn’t know what was wrong with him lately. Every decision was impulsive, all his thoughts were muddled, he couldn’t find solace in damn near anything. It was a whole mess, up in his head. And now he was trying to convict innocent people of being part of terror cells on the whim of a half-formed dream.

Stupid. Stupid stupid stupid.

Steve looked around the empty penthouse suite, swallowing deeply and then turning to look at the corner where, a few steps on, he knew Tony’s bedroom was. He never usually slept in there- normally he took a room on the communal floor that he’d sort of claimed as his own and was way more messy and _Tony-ish_ than the one up here was- but since beginning his thing with Mark, he was using this floor more. Probably for privacy. Mark almost certainly appreciated the view, too. It was one hell of a fancy floor after all.

It wasn’t really Tony, though. Too cold and unwelcoming. Too clean. Tony was a whirlwind, a mess of colour and life. This penthouse didn’t suit him.

But what did Steve know, huh? For all he knew, Mark could have swayed his opinion and warmed him up to the style of this place. Mark sure knew what was fashionable or not. He was always dressed in expensive clothes that fit him well, that suited his eyes or his skin or his shoes or whatever the fuck.

Steve had never felt so boring, when he stood next to that man.

He shut his eyes and turned, walking quietly to the elevator and then making his way back to his own floor, where he gingerly sat down on his desk and then looked at his computer for a few moments. The small niggling feeling in his gut was still there. It was stupid, and he _knew_ it was stupid- but he would feel better if he just did a few background checks of his own. Peace of mind and all that.

So that was how he spent the rest of his night. Time that probably should have been spent sleeping was all wasted on trying to find dirt on Tony’s fucking boyfriend. Because Steve really was just that low.

In case anyone was wondering, by the way, he didn’t. Because Mark was fucking perfect. Mark had two PhD’s and he’d studied at Harvard. Mark was rich, but he’d dedicated years of his life to charity work and helping the less fortunate. Mark had even been prom king.

Steve shut the laptop with a slam and looked straight out of the window, his mouth pursed in a thin line. He felt tired- another night of no sleep, it seemed. Watery winter sun was starting to poke through the concrete horizon of New York City, and Steve just watched it all go by for a minute or two. It was soothing. Familiar.

He leaned forward and shut his eyes, trying to remember a time when everything had just been easy.

He didn’t think there was one.

Brooding alone in his half-lit room didn’t last long, and eventually he decided to head back down the kitchen. He checked the wound on his shoulder along the way, and nodded to himself when he saw the fast healing mark. Hastily covering it with a new layer of gauze, Steve pulled on the nearest shirt and then stumbled off in the direction of the kitchen. It was 8 according to his watch, so he might as well start making breakfast for everyone. It might take his mind off things, too. Or just tire him out enough to finally get some sleep.

He ran a hand over his face, hopping down the stairs two at a time. The kitchen, when he rounded the corner, was dark and empty, usual for an early morning-

Wait.

Maybe not so empty, Steve thought, heart sinking as the very man he literally wanted to see least in the world sat up slowly from the breakfast table, looking toward the sound of Steve’s footsteps curiously. Mark’s eyes widened at the sight of him and he sat up straighter, smiling tiredly over to him. Steve briefly wondered whether he could get away with just turning on his heel and walking straight out again. But no. Not even he was that rude.

“Good Morning, Steve,” Mark said amicably.

Steve nodded and responded as equally amicably as he could manage. He saw the man’s face and just saw a threat, now. For whatever reason, the idea that he wasn’t who he said he was had lodged itself in Steve’s mind, and now refused to leave. He didn’t trust the guy. Mark was just… off. Steve was sure of it. In some way.

“How’s the shoulder?” Mark asked with concern in his voice, because of course he would want to know. Like Steve had said; Mark was a good man.

He shrugged. “It’s alright. Tony got the bullet out for me, and I heal fast, so.”

Mark hummed. “God, what I would give for a serum like that,” he said with a small laugh, “I used to read all those science reports that had been released to the public, written by Doctor Erskine. Fascinating stuff, absolutely fascinating. You must be very grateful he picked you.”

He was just desperately attempting to start a conversation, about anything at all. That was what everyone else would probably think. Because there was a 99% chance it was the truth. But of course, all Steve could focus on was that 1% that connected his question with the HYDRA search, with the picture of his face in the middle of a room, red string spanning out with every attempt to gather some information on the rebirth project that they could get their hands on.

Steve’s jaw clenched. “Afraid I couldn’t tell you- all that stuff is classified.”

“Oh,” Mark said, because there was nothing else he really _could_ say. He’d tried to be friendly and Steve had just shot him straight down. Because he was an asshole.

They both fell into an awkward silence as Steve made his way to the cupboards to pull his and Tony’s mugs from within. He found his own and slid it over to the kettle in preparation, but frowned when he realised that Tony’s was not in its usual spot. He could admit, it took him a few seconds longer than usual to come to the right conclusion.

He turned, eyes narrowing at the mug held firmly between Mark’s hands. “That’s Tony’s,” he said, pointing a finger.

Mark blinked and didn’t move for a second, and then looked down. “Oh,” he said, “uh- does it… matter?”

That time, it was Steve’s turn to freeze. He supposed that Mark was right- it _didn’t_ matter. Not at all. It was just a stupid mug, and Tony would happily use any other. It wasn’t like they had rights over any of the dishware in the tower. Just because Steve routinely made Tony his morning coffee when he got up, using that exact mug and the exact amounts to get it exactly right, didn’t…. didn’t make it a _Thing_ , obviously.

God, Steve was acting like a five year old.

“No,” he shook his head, smiling at Mark, “no, sorry, it’s just-- I just usually make him his first-- never mind,” Steve turned back around to the counter, cursing himself for even bothering to say anything in the first place. He was too tired to think properly. He was just saying the first damn thing that came to mind.

Hastily wrapping his hands around a new cup, Steve just concentrated on making himself some tea and then getting out before the situation was made any more awkward than it probably already was. Steve simply wasn’t firing on enough cylinders to act normal around the guy- he’d just gotten back from a mission and he hadn’t even slept since. It took a toll, eventually, even for a man like him.

“You don’t like me much, do you?” Mark said blandly, and Steve jumped where he was stood, nearly letting his mug spill out of his hands in surprise.

He turned to Mark, eyes wide and heart sinking. “I-“ he began, before snapping his mouth shut again. He wasn’t too sure what to say. “I don’t know you.”

Which was true. And what he’d told Tony as well.

Mark bit his lip and looked down. “Tony said it might be because of that,” he admitted, “but I… I’d like to change that. Possibly. I mean, you’re his best friend. And- well- it seems like I might be sticking around for a bit. So I’d like to try and get to know you. For him.”

Steve froze in place, feeling the now all-too-familiar sensation of being gutted by words alone. Mark thought he was going to be sticking around. Mark probably _was_ going to be sticking around, at least for the foreseeable future.

And he wanted to- what- to be friends with Steve? Buddies?

God, what was he even supposed to say?

Slowly, shakily, he put his mug back down on the counter and turned around, his back to Mark once more. “I just want to make sure that your intentions are good,” he said in the end, clenching his jaw and then shutting the cupboard door with a snap, “a lotta people have ulterior motives, when it comes to Tony.”

Taking a small breath and steeling his resolve, Steve turned and then stepped forward, resting the flats of his palms against the table and staring Mark down with his hardest glare. Mark leaned back immediately, his eyes widening. “Uh-“

“I’d like to mention that this isn’t me threatening you, here,” Steve told him sharply, waving a finger between him and Mark, “this is me promising you something.” He leaned in closer, voice going lower. “If you have _any_ intention of hurting him, or causing him pain- if you’re here for anything other than him and him alone, and _I find out about it?”_

Mark swallowed as Steve pointed to the windows on the other end of the kitchen, four hundred feet above ground level. “That is what I’m putting you through. Understood?”

He stared unwaveringly at Mark, waiting for the answer. After the night he’d had; after the brief moment of panic, the distrust that he still felt brewing in his gut over the stupid HYDRA files, Steve realised that he wanted to make sure that Mark knew what he was up against, were he to try and pull anything even remotely nefarious.

Steve would be there in heartbeat. He would never even let Mark get fucking _close_ to Tony. Not like that. Not ever.

Eventually, Mark nodded at him, his face hardening. “I wouldn’t,” he promised quietly, “I love him.”

Oh. He hadn’t been expecting that.  
Something in Steve’s heart, if possible by that point, broke further.

“Good,” he said, hearing his voice crack traitorously toward the end of the syllable, “that’s… good. I’m glad.”

Mark’s face softened. “Yeah, so am I,” he murmured- and Steve just knew he had to go. This wasn’t something he could deal with right now. He knew that if he stayed any longer, he would do something he’d regret.

Mark had given Steve his word that he would not hurt Tony. And he just had to trust that Mark would stick by that.

Swallowing down the strange urge to whimper, Steve turned on his heel and then marched swiftly back out of the kitchen. Behind him, his mug stood empty, tea entirely forgotten.

 

 

 

 

_

 

 

 

 

The movie with Tony was wonderful. Steve laughed a lot, it was easy, Tony spilled a slurpee all over his shirt and then tried to lick it off and Steve had to apologise to passers-by as they walked through and saw what he was doing. Everything was so normal and good.

“I’ve missed doing this,” Tony told him later, when they were back home on opposite sides of the couch, their legs tangled together in the middle, “the place isn’t the same without you.”

Steve hummed, looking away guiltily. “Sorry.”

Tony’s foot poked into his shin, and when Steve looked over Tony was smiling at him. “Just… you know that I’m always gonna be here for you, right? You do so much for me. You always listen to me vent and you take my shit like no-one else does and I just—I want to return the favour. I’m your friend. I won’t judge you for anything you’re going through.”

God, Steve loved him. Kind, selfless, considerate Tony. Not even angry that Steve had been deliberately avoiding him- just upset that Steve was hurting and not telling Tony the reason for it.

It was a catch 22. Whatever move he made, Steve just couldn’t win.

Luckily (or unluckily, depending on who you asked) their conversation was interrupted when Steve heard the sounds of the elevator opening, and turned to watch as Bruce stumbled out of it dazedly. He was wearing his shirt back-to-front and clutching a clipboard as if his life depended on it. His glasses were skewed comically over the bridge of his nose, and he generally gave off the impression of a man who seemed three seconds away from keeling over completely.

Tony sighed, sitting up a little as he shared a look with Steve. “Bruce, have you been drinking redbull and caffeine pills again?”

“The fucking… the bacteria won’t fucking die,” Bruce muttered, not even hearing Tony’s question as he flailed out his hands, “ _something’s_ gotta kill it. _Everything_ can kill something else. Why is this stupid extremophile so goddamn persistent? I don’t want it to wipe out the Earth, that’d suck, so I…cure. But a cure would requires it to die and _it won’t die and-“_

“I think you should call Thor,” Tony said quietly as he turned to Steve with a small grin, “Bruce may need some persuasion to get into a bed.” His arms flew out and he slid easily off the couch, walking over to Bruce enthusiastically. “Brucie-woo! Come here- tell me all about this on the nice couch over here where there is no caffeine, huh?”

Bruce blinked, “but I gotta-“

“No, no you do not,” Tony told him with a firm shake of his head as he began to guide the half-asleep scientist over to where Steve was still sat, amusedly snapchatting a recording of the man and then sending it to Thor.

Bruce went down with a small huff, and then rested his head back against the pillows. “Oh boy,” he whispered, “I don’t think I’ve put my neck down in about thirty hours.”

“God, what is it with you crazy scientists?” Steve asked, looking across Bruce’s chest to Tony who was sat at the other side of the man, “why can’t you just regulate yourselves like us boring normal guys do?”

Tony laughed, resting his chin on his hand and looking up at Steve. “We don’t need to- Bruce has Thor for that, and I’ve got you.”

It was an innocuous comment, but it still managed to punch the breath from Steve’s lungs. “Mark,” he corrected, and when Tony looked confused he added, “you-- you’ve got Mark for that.”

“Oh.” Tony’s smile was less bright now, before it slid away completely and was replaced with an altogether more plastic one. “Yeah, uh. Sorry. My bad.”

Tony probably thought Steve was being weird. If he’d have said that a few months ago, Steve would have just laughed and agreed. But now things were different. Steve had to establish the boundaries for himself, so that he wouldn’t get carried away. It was for the best.

Thor came in a minute or so later, smiling in exasperated fondness at the sight of Bruce and then crouching onto his haunches in front of the exhausted scientist. “I told you to go to sleep,” he murmured, brushing an errant strand of hair from out of Bruce’s eyes, “will there ever be a day when you actually listen to the advice I give you?”

Bruce’s eyes fluttered open as he registered the voice, and Steve watched his face break out into the softest and most loving smile that he thought he’d ever seen in his life. “Maybe,” he muttered, sitting up and then falling into Thor’s open arms, “if you can convince me to.”

Thor just rolled his eyes, glancing at Steve. “He’s a complete liar,” he explained as he shifted his arms and then tucked Bruce into the crook of his shoulder before standing again, the other man now nestled safely in his hold, “believe me, I have lost weeks of my life attempting to ‘convince’ him. It never quite seems to stick.”

Steve resisted the urge to glance over to Tony. _‘I know the feeling’_ , he did not say.

Out of the corner of his eye, Steve watched Tony watch Thor and Bruce, something almost wistful in his eyes. “Handcuff him to the bed if you have to,” Tony told the God with a smirk, “just don’t let him leave without getting a good nine hours or so. The guy’s completely spent.”

Thor nodded and then with a small smile, he turned on his heel and walked off back in the direction of his room, murmuring quietly into Bruce’s hair as he went. Steve turned to Tony, poking him in the ribs with his foot. “Since when did you have anything to say about a regular sleeping schedule?” He asked, raising an eyebrow.

Tony laughed and shook his head. “Yeah yeah, whatever, I know I’m probably not one to talk. But I don’t need as much sleep as he does.”

“That’s not true,” Steve pointed out, “you probably need more. You’re baseline and he’s… well, he’s got a very powerful alter-ego that can probably help him recover a little better than you could.”

“False- the alter ego is what would tire him out faster, meaning, in fact, he does need more sleep than me,” Tony let his head fall back against the couch cushions and then turned a little so he was facing Steve. Then, a second later, he gave a massive yawn, which really didn’t help his case much. “That was only because we were talking about it. Power of suggestion.”

“Sure,” Steve rolled his eyes, “sure it was.”

“Shut up, Rogers.”

“No.”

In response, Tony grabbed a pillow and threw it at him. Steve blinked, feeling it hit his face and then looking down once it fell into his lap. “What are you, _five?”_ He asked, before grabbing it and then swinging it back, hitting tony in the face.

“Do not make me start a pillow fight with you at ten minutes past midnight, Steve,” Tony warned as he grabbed his ammo and then cocked his head in challenge.

“You can start it if you like, but believe me, I will be finishing it,” was all Steve responded with, looking down and observing his nails.

 

And then, of course, they were wrestling.

 

Steve laughed in surprise as Tony launched forward, throwing one of Natasha’s special fluffy blankets at him as a diversion and then hauling his pillow toward Steve’s face. Of course, he caught it easily- but Tony came in with a second sneak attack and hit him hard enough around the back of the head to send him lurching forward.  When Steve looked up accusingly, Tony’s face was alight with amusement.

“Bastard,” he huffed, and then tackled Tony backward with one of the biggest couch cushions. Tony yelped, hands grabbing Steve’s shoulders as they both fell back.

 “Not fair!” He shouted, “unbalanced weight advantage!”

“You knew what you were getting into,” Steve told him as he brought down the pillow on Tony’s face over and over again, “you chose this war, Stark.”

Tony spluttered and attempted to shield his face with his hands and grab another cushion, but Steve made quick work of his hands as he wrapped his own around both of Tony’s wrists and then brought them together atop Tony’s chest, holding them down with a nod of his head. “Surrender and tell me I’m the best.”

“You’re the _worst!”_

Steve hit him in the face again, and then poked Tony in the underside of his ribs. Tony yelped- he was ticklish absolutely everywhere, and Steve had used this to his advantage more than once.

“Surrender and tell me I’m the best,” he repeated.

“I’m about to initiate my counter attack any second now and then you’ll be the one begging,” Tony vowed breathlessly as Steve dug into his ribs again, “I swear, Steve, I’m gonna call the fucking iron man suit. I’ll do-- _ah shit!”_ He dissolved into helpless laughter as Steve moved his hands up and then tickled under Tony’s arms, grinning childishly as Tony kicked out his legs and jerked under Steve’s weight, hopelessly attempting to push him off.

“Alright alright you- you win, you win, you’re the best and I fucking surrender, asshole!” Tony managed to choke out in the end, once it became clear that there was no way he’d be able to get Steve off him, “now stop hitting me, you fiend.”

Steve quirked an eyebrow. “When I let you go, are you immediately going to try and hit me again?”

“No,” Tony looked sullen, “I was gonna tickle you. Taste of your own medicine. Dick.”

Tony’s bottom lip was formed in an adorable pout, and Steve smiled down at him. He wanted to scoop Tony up in his arms like Thor had just done, kiss that sulky frown off his face. It would be so satisfying. Tony’s mouth looked really good. He’d probably taste like coffee, and Steve liked coffee, so it would be nice. So nice.

Of course, it was in that moment that he became acutely aware of the fact that he was straddling Tony, and had the other man’s hands pinned down to his chest. If someone were to walk in and witness it, Steve knew what they would see. What they would think, when they saw the look on his face as he gazed down at Tony. The pinkness on his cheeks, the stupid smile that was invariably plastered to his face, the mussed-up hair from their stupid fucking pillow fight.

It would be impossible for anyone not to see that Steve wanted this.

“-Steve?” Tony asked, sitting up suddenly as Steve jerked back and made his way to the safety of the other side of the couch. His smile faltered.

“Hey, I’m a man of my word,” Steve said weakly, holding up his hands, “I said I’d let you go when you told me I’m the best. Captain America doesn’t lie.”

In his head, all Steve could think about was the way he’d been holding Tony just seconds previously. He’d hardly even considered it at the time, but now that he was, it was almost impossible to stop. It was the first time he and Tony had been that close in weeks, if not months. Steve had been fucking straddling him, for Christ’s sake – it would have been so easy for Steve to just lean in closer, roll his hips, hear Tony’s laughter turn breathless. He knew how easily Tony reacted to touch. Look at how ticklish he was, for God’s sake; proof he was sensitive pretty much anywhere. Steve bet if he tried, he wouldn’t even have to move from his current position to get Tony off. Maybe he wouldn’t even have to use his hands.

 

Fuck, that was hot.

 

Oh Jesus, what was _wrong_ with him? Now he couldn’t even treat Tony like a friend without turning it dirty, into something that it quite clearly was not?

He was sick, and pathetic, and…

Shit. Now he was half-hard.

“Christ,” Steve whispered, and then when Tony looked at him in concern, he stuttered to find an excuse, “shit, I uh- I just realised. I haven’t finished off Fury’s report. It’s due tomorrow morning. Or today morning, I guess. I have to. I gotta go and… do that.”

Before Tony could even try and respond, Steve jumped from the couch and then rushed out of the living room, refusing to even say goodbye. Tony called out his name, confused and upset, and there was nothing Steve could do about it- he couldn’t stay, that’d only make things worse. God, what if Tony _saw_ him? No, no, absolutely not- Steve couldn’t turn around. He just had to go.

His head was a mess, his mood plummeting from happiness to complete mortification in the space of a few seconds. His dick seemed to not understand what was going on was fucking awful, however, because he could feel his fucking sweatpants tenting without his permission, _Jesus Fucking Christ._

He really was the worst.

He pretty much sprinted back to his room and then stumbled in uncoordinatedly, slamming the door behind him as he went. His breath was coming in heavy and short, and for a second it was like he just could not breathe at all. He leaned his head back against the door and shut his eyes tight, trying _so hard_ not to think about Tony- about having Tony in his arms, about making love to him right there on that couch where anyone could see, kissing him in every place he could find because Goddamn it Tony’s body was just _so beautiful_ , it deserved nothing other than total worship.

Whatever pathetic attempt at mental blocking he put up, though, it quite clearly didn’t work. The lack of Tony in his life for past few weeks had left a hole in his life that’d been way bigger than he’d thought, and suddenly having him that tantalizingly close again had sent him spiralling right into an emotional cocktail of happiness and love and lust that Steve couldn’t get a grip on, no matter how hard he tried. In defeat and shame, Steve bent his head and pressed the heel of his palm against his cock, biting down on a moan as soon as he made contact. He was so hard already, and it was so fucking unfair. He couldn’t jerk off. Not now. Not like this.

“Fuck,” he jerked his hand away rapidly and then fisted both of them into the sockets of his eyes instead, groaning loudly, “fuck, fuck fuck fuck f _uck fuck!”_

He couldn’t do this. It was too much.

Not only was he fantasizing about a man who was never and would never be his, but he was fantasizing about his _friend_ like that. It was just wrong. Tony was in love with someone else. Steve had no right.

But he just couldn’t stop. Whatever Tony did, Steve loved him. Whatever Steve did to try and stop that, it didn’t work. It wasn’t getting better.

If Steve wanted this to get fixed, he needed to give himself more space than what he was doing now. He needed… time. That had to work. He needed a long mission, he needed a distraction. Right now, he just kept thinking about it. It was always on his mind. But if he was distracted well enough, and for long enough- then maybe it would be more successful.

It had to. Steve didn’t know what he was going to do if it didn’t.

He spent the next half an hour packing his bags, hands shaking and mind racing, one billion different thoughts circulating around and around. Most of them involved Tony. Some involved Mark. A few involved what he was supposed to tell the rest of his friends when he broke it to them that he was moving out. He knew it was going to hurt them. He just… he had to make them know that this was going to be for the best, in the long run.

God, he was so tired. It had been four days. Four days without sleep.

Steve was nearly finished by the time he heard the knock on his door. He spasmed jerkily, spilling his phone out of his hands with a muttered curse. He wondered who it was, coming to chat at- he checked his watch- 1:15 in the morning. Steve really hoped it wasn’t Tony. He wasn’t sure how he would explain all this to the other man.

Swallowing nervously, he made his way to the other side of the room and then opened his door a crack, not showing the person outside what he was up to. However, rather than Tony’s face, it was Natasha’s that he saw; expression serious and arms folded into her chest as she stared at Steve.

“Tony just came into the gym where I was training,” she started, looking deeply at him, “he said that you’d freaked out, _again_ , and he’s convinced that he’s doing everything wrong and you’re starting to hate him. He was nearly fucking crying, Steve. You can’t keep doing this. He doesn’t know what’s going on and you’re hurting him every single time you treat him this way.”

There were exactly two occasions in which Steve had felt worse in his life. He looked away. “I know I can’t,” he whispered, “I know. You… you’re gonna have to tell him that I’m sorry. For everything.”

She blinked, confusion sweeping over her face. “Why don’t you tell him that yourself, huh? Sure he’ll appreciate it a little more-“

Without using words, he swung open the door and showed her his mess of a room, suitcase stacked on the bed and piled messily with his clothes. She looked at it blankly for a moment, her question answered, and then turned back to him. “No.”

“Natasha, I can’t-“

“Steve,” she said, her voice going soft as she took his arm, “Steve, дорогой, you are overtired. You’re not thinking straight. This is only going to hurt you both more.”

He opened his mouth to argue, but she shook her head and pressed a hand to his mouth. “Please, Steve. Get some sleep and then rethink. This… this is a not a decision you can make hastily. This is big. You have to be completely sure it is right, and right now you’re being ruled by your emotions; your fight or flight response. But you don’t run away from the things that scare you, Steve. You stay and you fight for them.”

Steve looked at her, hopelessness locked into his face. “I don’t know what else to do, Nat,” he whispered.

She looked pained as she leaned in and wrapped her arms around him, pulling him close. He buried his head into her neck, smelling the cool tones of her expensive perfume, the lingering salt of sweat that she’d gained from her training.

“Neither do I,” she admitted, “but I don’t want you to go, дурачить. And you never know- they might break up tomorrow. Don’t give up yet.”

He sighed and smiled at her weakly. “Yeah,” he said, “yeah, maybe they will.”

Of course they wouldn’t. They were quite clearly very happy. But Steve liked when Natasha said that anyway. Made it feel a little more possible.

“Would you like some company tonight?” She asked him gently, squeezing his arm, “you will probably need to clean up your room before you go to sleep.”

He nodded slowly, too weak to reject her offer. “Company would be good, yeah,” he croaked, stepping aside and then letting her through. She smiled and then stepped in, moving to his bed and carefully lifting up his suitcase, placing it on the floor in the corner of the room. Then she hopped onto the bed and let her head rest on the pillow. “Sorry if I get sweat all over your sheets,” she said sheepishly, “I can’t be bothered to shower right now.”

Steve laughed, moving forward and then sitting gingerly on the side of the bed. “Don’t worry about it- pretty sure I haven’t even cleaned ‘em in about two months now. You can’t make them any worse.”

“Gross,” she frowned and then tucked herself in further. When Steve remained sat, he felt he hand slowly curl around his wrist. “Get some sleep, Steve,” she said softly, “you’ve had a long day.”

He sighed. It was more than a long day. Steve felt like he was going to crumble to pieces any week now, if he kept this up.

But still, he lay down next to her and smiled anyway. “Goodnight, Natasha.”

“Night, Steve.”

 

 

 

 

_

 

 

 

 

By the morning, he’d gotten three more hours of sleep, and decided he was going to put off his rash decision of moving out and just hold on for a little longer. See if he could work something, anything out.

Natasha prodded him awake and started shuffling around in his room, grabbing one of his shirts and changing into it tiredly. Steve just rolled his eyes at her- that woman had no respect for other people’s property, and he knew without a doubt that he’d probably never be seeing his avocado-themed tshirt ever again. At least, not unless she was wearing it.

“Hey, shithead,” he called out to her from his bed, “if you’re gonna steal my stuff, at least go fetch me a coffee too.”

She shot him a dry glare. “Do you know how far away coffee is?” She asked him.

“Do you know how much that T-shirt cost?”

“Uh, dollar-forty?”

He rolled his eyes and threw his comb at her. “Get me a coffee because I’m sad then,” he told her, adding to the effect by pouting.

She stared at him for another moment, before raising a finger and pointing at him. “I have killed more people than you have met in your life.”

“And I’m terrified. Now please can I have some coffee?”

With a flounce, she rolled her eyes and then stormed out, shooting him her middle finger as she went. “You are very lucky I like you,” she told him quickly, before slamming the door behind her. He just laughed quietly, rolling upright and then slipping out of bed to wash his face and put on a fresh set of clothes. After his (admittedly short) sleep, he felt a little better. A little more balanced.

He still didn’t think he was going to unpack his suitcase, though. Not yet.

About ten minutes later, Natasha came back to his room, now equipped with two coffees. She shoved it into his hands and pulled a face when he blew a kiss at her in response. “Save it,” she told him sulkily, “I just had to see Thor in the kitchen with his tightey-whiteys on and nothing more. That’s not something a girl should be seeing at this time of the day. Or ever.”

He laughed, taking a sip and then turning back to the mirror. “I appreciate the sacrifice you made,” he told her.

She was quiet for a minute or two, sat cross-legged on his bed as she sipped at her drink. Steve focused on trying to sort out his hair- it really needed a wash by that point, but Steve couldn’t be bothered, so right now he was simply being very generous with dry shampoo.

“You feeling a little better this morning?” She asked in the end, and he glanced up at her from the reflection of the mirror with a shrug.

“Yeah,” he admitted, “kinda. I’ll… I’m not leaving. Not now, anyway.”

Her face broke out into a genuine smile, and Steve was monumentally glad that he had her for a friend. “Good,” she told him with a nod, “things wouldn’t be the same without you here.”

Steve huffed. Somehow, he doubted that. It wasn’t exactly like he contributed much anyway.

For the most part of the next few weeks, he busied himself with as much work as he could manage. He headed out to DC for some recon work the day after his slight breakdown and then remained there for a week, trying to patch up some of the relations between SHIED and the military that had become frayed after a spat over rights to alien weapons. It was exhausting work, dealing with men like that on his own whilst trying not to punch anyone, and so Steve found his time largely taken up with that.

Tony had called him two days in. Steve let it go to voicemail. He was surprised when Tony actually left one, though, because he knew that the other man hated them. That alone was what made him listen to it.

 _‘Hey Steve,’_ Tony had started with, his voice unnaturally blasé, _‘just checking in, seeing how things are. You—uh – I thought we were gonna be spending the day sorting out your new suit today, but then you didn’t show up so I asked Nat and she said you’d gone out for a mission, so…’_ the hurt was there, clear as day. Tony was upset Steve hadn’t told him. Steve always told him, usually. _‘Anyway. Just calling to say that we can reschedule that for whenever you want. I mean that. Any time. Or, I mean, I can just give it to SHIELD and let them take over. If that’s what you’d prefer. I dunno. Just don’t put it off too long. It’s important you’re wearing the right stuff if you’re fighting aliens, yeah?”_

Tony’s voice trailed off, and Steve had realised that he was gripping his knee so tightly that it was starting to sting.

 _‘Stay safe, Steve,’_ Tony had eventually finished, voice going quiet and subdued, _‘I miss… yeah. Don’t be gone too long. Bye’_

And that had been that. Since then, Tony hadn’t called or tried again. Which was for the best. He made Steve’s concentration go completely off-kilter, which wasn’t good for a mission with high sensitivity. Steve was just doing his job properly.

Eventually, though, he had to go back home. There was only so much negotiating a man could do, and despite everything, he was glad to get back to the tower in the end. The team all welcomed him back using various insults and pulled faces, and Steve just grinned at them all before sitting down to eat the dinner that Bruce had cooked a few hours ago.

He didn’t see Tony for the next week after that anyway. He’d gone away on a business trip.

Apparently Mark had gone with him.

Steve let himself relax in the tower with his friends, able to actually come down and talk to them more without the threat of bumping into Mark and Tony too. It was nice to be around them all again; to argue over what shows to watch, what dinner to make. He sparred with Thor until both of them were dead on their feet, he bickered with Clint about his appalling quality of living, and acted as Bruce’s assistant for a project that required more than one set of hands.

It was good. Normal. Steve had forgotten how much he missed the familiarity of everything. He missed seeing his friends.

By the end of the week at home, he was in a much better mood, and looking at things with a much better outlook in general. He didn’t want to leave all of this behind. He shouldn’t have to. It was a little childish, maybe, but Steve had been here first. He wasn’t going to be pushed out by stupid Mark. Yeah, maybe it sucked to see Tony and him together- but Steve needed to learn how to deal with it eventually. Because it was going to keep happening. It would be stupid to think that Mark was an outlier here. Tony dated people. It was a fact.

Those people just weren’t Steve.

And you know what? He was almost beginning to think that he may possibly be able to start dealing with that. He came _so close._

 

And then Tony had come back home with Mark.

 

“Friends, family, Clint,” he declared as he stepped through the elevator, suitcase in one hand, Mark’s in the other, “I have some cool news that is cool and definitely news to you all. Mostly because we just decided it on the cab-ride back home- so I mean really, this is news to me too, and I know that you’re probably gonna be all like ‘oh if you thought of it so quick then why are you going ahead with it’ but just FYI, I am a genius and so totally know what I’m-“

“-Sweetheart,” Mark said in amusement, tugging his hand lightly, “you’re rambling.”

Tony blinked, and then laughed nervously. “Whoops. Okay. Uh. Right. Back to the point!” He clapped his hands together and Steve watched him move through into the living room where they were all sat. There was a slight edge to his voice, and Steve recognised it as nerves. There were bags under his eyes and his hands shook, which meant he hadn’t been sleeping too great either. Steve bit his lip. Business trips always took it out of Tony-

“Mark is gonna be moving in with me!”

Steve blanched, and every other Avenger’s eyes went saucer-wide. Tony laughed again. “Well, I mean- I guess he’s moving in with us, but like, my tower, so. And I promise it will be useful. He makes a mean pancake, and he even said he’ll cook for the whole team in the morning. So there’s at least one good thing about him.” He turned to Mark with a small smile, and then Steve watched blankly as they shared a kiss, oblivious to the world around them.

He wasn’t sure he was breathing. Natasha’s hand reached for his, but he snatched it away. He was burning. He was freezing. He was sinking into the fucking ground, choking on the fucking dirt.

Moving in. That was a big step. It also meant Mark was going to be around all the time, now. With Tony, probably. And the rest of the team, he supposed. Because he was friends with all of them. Because they all liked him, and he was smart and funny and better than Steve in every way you could think.

For a split second, he wished that he’d never fucking met Anthony Edward Stark.

“I know that you guys might think it’s a bit weird,” Mark admitted once he broke away from Tony’s mouth, “and I know that- uh- what with everything you do, it might be a little difficult, logistically. But I’ve taken all of it into consideration. I still want to be here. I’ll stay out of your way when you’re avenging, don’t worry. Tony’s run through all of it with me.” Mark smiled nervously, taking Tony’s hand once more, like it was the two of them against the whole fucking world. “I hope this is okay with you.”

Everyone remained silent, totally unsure of what to say. Steve couldn’t even speak if he tried.

“That’s great, guys,” Thor said in the end, clearing his throat to speak, “I’m really happy for you!”

Tony smiled, visibly relieved that someone had finally spoken. “Thanks, Thor,” he told the other man earnestly.

The rest of the team followed suit, welcoming Mark with open arms and smiles. Steve felt Natasha nip him quickly in the side and blinked, snapping out of his trance just as Tony settled his gaze onto him. He seemed almost nervous- like Steve’s approval was important to him.

Steve smiled, a broken, broken thing. “I’m glad you’re happy, Tony,” he said- and he meant it. It _was_ good. Tony deserved happiness more than anyone.

Tony didn’t do anything for a moment- and the look on his face made Steve know there were probably a billion questions that he wanted to ask Steve. There was… there was something there that Steve couldn’t read. Regret, maybe. But probably not. Tony had nothing to be regretful for.

“Thanks, winghead,” he responded in the end, a mere shadow of what must have been on the tip of his tongue.

 

 

 

 

_

 

 

 

 

That night, Steve packed his bags again.

Natasha, Clint, Bruce and Thor came into his room, because he’d asked them there. He didn’t ask Tony. He was probably… busy, anyway. They all watched him pack in silence, sitting on his bed or his desk or, in Clint’s case, on top of his wardrobe. Steve didn’t know what to say.

“Don’t go,” Clint blurted a minute or so later, a pleading note in his voice, “Steve, buddy, this-“

“-is for the best,” Steve finished for him, numb. He folded his socks and stacked them neatly into the corner of his suitcase.

Clint spluttered, readying to reply, but Natasha stopped him. “Let him make his choice, Clint,” she told the other man defeatedly, “he needs this.” Natasha’s gaze turned on him, and they shared a small nod. “Make sure you call whenever you can,” she said softly, “visit often.”

He smiled, his eyes wet. “Yeah,” he choked, “yeah, I will.”

Bruce was clutching Thor’s hand so tight that both of their knuckles were white, and when Steve had finished packing up he stopped to give them a short hug, which they returned. It quickly turned into a group cuddle, and Steve almost managed to drum up a smile when he heard Clint tell Natasha not to squeeze his ass while they were in mourning.

He didn’t want to leave.

But he had to.

 

At 2 in the morning, Steve took his stuff and threw it into the back of his car. And then he went.

 

 

 

 

_

 

 

 

 

The place in DC was very different to his home in the tower.

It was a lot older. Plainer. Simple décor, one-bedroom apartment. It was close to a SHIELD headquarters too, which was convenient. It’d do just fine for Steve.

He stopped at the doorway, bags in hand, and let himself breathe out. A few states’ worth of distance would probably do it. He’d gotten the team to break the news to Tony, because he was too fucking cowardly to do it himself. Because if he told Tony, he knew that Tony would try and make him stay- and he also knew that he wouldn’t be able to say no. And he _had_ to say no.

It was a shitty move. But all the moves Steve had been making recently were shitty. This was nothing new.

He didn’t bother unpacking. Too tired for it. Instead, he swallowed down every emotion that he was feeling and pulled on his gym gear, and then ran around and around Lincoln Memorial until he nearly blacked out from exhaustion. Then he went back home and fell asleep.

He felt kind of empty.

Tony called him twenty times that day, and Steve muted his phone. He knew, now, that Tony was surely going to connect the dots. It was impossible for him not to. All of this had begun with Mark, and now Steve had left the tower without even seeing goodbye, the very same night that Mark had moved in.

He didn’t want to hear the sorts of things that Tony would say about that. He was too cowardly. Tony would give up after a while- realise Steve wasn’t worth his fucking time. Then he’d go and marry Mark and adopt five beautiful little kids or whatever the fuck, and they’d be happy, and Steve would be here. In DC.

It was okay. It was okay. It was okay.

He called the team that night. He didn’t say much- just let them talk about everything and anything that had nothing to do with Tony or Mark. Steve appreciated that. It was even bigger than just an elephant in the room, but Steve could deal with the blatant denial for now. Until he was feeling a little better about the whole thing, he could just pretend that there was absolutely no reason for his sudden departure.

He went to bed at 10, woke up at 4, then went on a run again for two hours. It helped a little, he supposed. Then he went to SHIELD and reported his status over there, then went around the city for a little in order to go buy some supplies, like toothpaste and cups. Necessities for someone living in a brand new apartment. For a few seconds, when he looked at the long racks of mugs in front of him, he wondered which ones he was supposed to get without someone (most likely Nat or Tony) getting pissy about it not fitting the theme of their home.  
Then he remembered, and just bought the first few ones he could see.

He pretended it was liberating. That it was relieving that he could buy whatever the fuck he wanted without being yelled at for it being the wrong shade of blue.

Tony had called him again, when he arrived back home. Steve really needed to stop looking at his phone unless it rang the emergency number.

He wondered how long it was going to take for him to get used to this. For it to become the norm to wake up in an apartment in DC rather than his floor on a skyscraper in the middle of New York. Really, it should be easier to settle here than it had been back there. This reminded him a little more of what he’d used to have- before the ice. Before Tony. Steve had gotten too used to having everything placed at his feet, so this change might be a good thing. Bring him back to earth a little. And it wasn’t even like this place was bad. It was sort of like being in a hotel. Steve had to start spicing it up and making it his own soon, he supposed.

At night, he dreamed of Tony. Of the two of them, in bed together, sweaty from sex. Tony was looking up at the ceiling with stars in his eyes, panting, coming down from the high of his orgasm. Steve was watching him, his fingers tracing over the ridges of the reactor. There were marks where Steve’s teeth had scratched against Tony’s neck, bitten in like a brand.

Tony had turned to him, and he’d been sunlight and Steve had felt it in his stomach. “Are you happy?” Tony had whispered, fingertips brushing over Steve’s bottom lip.

Steve took Tony’s wrist and kissed his knuckles, before pulling him closer. “With you? Always.”

 

And then he’d woken up, and he’d been alone and hard again, and it hadn’t even felt good at all when he’d gotten off in the shower five minutes later. It just fucking hurt.

 

That morning he kept himself busy again. Went to SHIELD, sorted through some reviews, looked up a file that had been flagged as similar to the case Steve and Nat had been working a month or so ago, to do with the whole team. Another base had popped up down in Mississippi, with the same sorts of research as what they’d seen last time. They were trying to build a picture out of scraps, and Steve needed to shut it down before it became a problem. He would die before he let HYDRA work out the secrets behind Erskine’s serum. According to mission reports, this research facility had been dedicated specifically to Tony and Steve. They’d clearly narrowed the two of them down as the most likely candidates to hold the knowledge. He made a call and got Natasha to mention it to Tony. The threat was climbing higher and they all needed to be prepared, after all.

“You look down,” the waitress told him that afternoon as he sat and watched the people pass by, sipping at a latte absently and holding his phone in the other hand. “You want me to get you an extra marshmallow? We keep a bottle of ‘em for the hot chocolates, but I think I can make an exception. On the house, just for you.”

He jumped and looked up to her with a small smile. “I appreciate the offer Miss,” he said lightly, “but I’m trying to watch my fat intake.”

He grinned when she just looked at him in complete disbelief. “Well, that sure don’t make me feel much better about myself,” she muttered, looking down at her own curvy figure, “Mr. Washboard Abs over here still gotta count his carbs? I really don’t have any hope.”

Steve frowned. “Hey now- not that it’s particularly polite of a gentleman to comment on a lady’s figure, but you look perfect. Don’t worry about that.”

She blushed and looked down with a small smile. “How charming,” she said, before muttering to himself, “looks _and_ personality? That’s unusual.”

That made Steve laugh, and he leaned back a little in his seat. “You need to find better men then, Miss.”

She opened her mouth to respond, but then one of her colleagues called her back and she had to go. Steve continued to watch the world go by for a few more minutes before asking for the bill, and when he took his receipt he realised that the woman- Sally, her buddy had called her- had put down her number on the back of it. _‘I’d like to get to know all these ‘better men’ you were talking about’_ she’d written with a smiley face next to it. Steve huffed as he walked off, pocketing it gently. He supposed to could call her. That might help things, right? And she was sweet. Pretty. He could get on with her well, he supposed.

When he got home, he put it on the side of the counter as a reminder. When he was ready, he could call.

He’d be ready soon. He would.

 

 

 

 

_

 

 

 

 

Someone banged on his door, and Steve shot up out of bed, his hand immediately going for the shield he kept resting against he wall next to his head.

“Steve!” A voice yelled out through the door on the other side of his room, the banging restarting, “Steve, I know you’re fucking in there. I don’t care if you’re asleep, you’re not any more. Now come out here and talk to me.”

It was Tony.

Of course it was Tony. Steve knew that this would have happened eventually. Tony couldn’t ever let a damn thing lie.

Well, that wasn’t fair. Tony just wanted answers, and Steve had not even given him a single one. Now he was done waiting for them, Steve supposed.

“Open the _fucking_ door, Steve!” Tony’s fist thumped three times on the door as Steve pulled himself out of bed. It was nearly midnight- Tony was going to wake everyone in the building up if he kept up the god damn racket.

Steve took in a deep breath as he marched over, emotionally steeling himself. He didn’t want to do this. Not right now. Not ever. But he didn’t really have a choice any more. Tony was here, and he wasn’t acting as if he was ready to take no for an answer. Steve just…. Wished he’d waited a little while longer, though. For some of Steve’s feelings to numb out, at the very least.

 He put a hand on the door-knob and twisted, throwing it open.

Seeing Tony, even though it had only been a few days, was like a punch to the gut.

He’d deteriorated rapidly since Steve had left. His hair was wild and greasy, his beard unkempt. The bags under his eyes were so dark that Steve wondered whether he’d even gotten any sleep at all. He was shaking- not just in the hands, but full-bodied, violent shakes. Like he was freezing to death.

Steve just stared at him blankly, taking it all in. He resisted the urge to ask Tony if he’d been sleeping. Not his place.

“Tell me what’s going on,” Tony said, voice shaking, “tell me right now, Steve.”

Oh Jesus.

Steve couldn’t answer. He had no idea where to begin. Tony growled and marched forward, slamming the door shut. He was still wearing his business suit, but it was creased and messy and his tie hung loosely around his neck. He looked like he’d flown here in the Iron Man suit.

“You haven’t talked to me properly in months,” Tony hissed, “you’ve been avoiding me. You don’t answer my calls. You stopped showing up when I asked you to come with me to places, and now… _you moved out and you didn’t even fucking tell me, Steve,”_ his voice broke at the end, sending a sharp stabbing pain right through Steve’s heart. “I just want to know why. I want-- please. Tell me what I did. I’m begging you, Steve. It’s the least you could fucking do, after all the shit you’ve pulled.”

That made him pause. Had Tony honestly not worked it out yet? “Are you joking?” Steve asked flatly.

Tony choked. “Joking? What the fuck? Why the fuck would I-“

“It’s Mark,” Steve told him bluntly, “it’s… it’s quite obviously Mark, Tony. This all started with him. I left when you broke the news about him moving in. Couldn’t deal with it. I don’t… I have no idea how you haven’t worked that out, honestly.”

There was no point trying to hide it anymore. He’d ruined everything anyway. Might as well just give Tony the full truth. Like he’d said- it was the least Steve could do after everything.

Tony stared at him, mouth agape, like he was just then connecting the dots. He made a face of incredulity. “Why?” He asked, “Steve- Mark did nothing to deserve this reaction. _Nothing_. He’s been perfect- to me, to you, to the team, so why the fuck are you being such a fucking asshole?”

Steve laughed humourlessly, but said nothing. He tried to just blurt it out, but it wouldn’t happen. The words wouldn’t come. He couldn’t make them.

The room fell into heavy silence. He could hear Tony breathe.

“Steve,” his name was spoken from pleading lips, all anger gone, leaving only a hopeless agony, “ if he… if he bothers you that much, then I’ll end it with him.” When Steve’s head snapped up in total disbelief, Tony just shrugged helplessly and stepped forward again. “ Jesus Fucking Christ, Steve… you mean everything to me. You’re my best friend. I-- I don’t want to lose you.”

Oh God, that was worse. That was fucking worse.

Steve was laughing before he could stop himself; sad, hysterical laughter as he shook his head and looked down at the floor. “Best friend,” he muttered, “I’m your _best friend,_ huh?”

“Of course you fucking are, Steve-“

“You wanna know what you mean to me?” Steve asked, head jerking up and looking curiously at Tony. The fear wasn’t there any more, now. A strange sense of calm had overcome him, and he could no longer find it in himself to care. About anything.

Tony blinked. He looked almost afraid. “What,” he whispered, fists clenching in preparation for what he probably assumed was going to be some sort of rejection, a declaration that Steve had never liked him, and he’d been imagining it all this time.

 

Steve marched forward, closing the gap between them in three strides, and then kissed him.

 

He put everything he had into those next three seconds. It was… _nothing_ \- it was a drop in the ocean of what he felt, a fucking insignificant fraction of the vastness of his love, but Steve still tried. He had nothing more to lose. Crowding into Tony’s space, his hands settled down against Tony’s neck and his thumb stroked under his jaw. Tony’s mouth was warm and tasted like coffee, just as Steve predicted. His beard tickled. His hands came up and curled around Steve’s forearms automatically and he made a shocked little humming sound in the back of his throat that vibrated all the way up to Steve’s lips.

For three seconds, Steve got to hold Tony Stark in the way he’d always wanted to.

And then he stopped.

Pulling his face away a fraction, he looked down at Tony. He couldn’t quite find it in himself to let go, not when he was closer than he’d ever been or would ever be again. Their noses brushed with every exhale of breath, and Tony’s eyes were blown wide in total shock, mouth half-open, slick and shiny. He had a beautiful mouth.

Steve shut his eyes and forced himself not to fall into the man he considered home more than any building or city. Instead, he began to pull off, his hands slipping away from Tony’s warm, soft skin and back to his sides, back where they belonged.

 

But then, before he could even get more than a couple of steps of space between them, Tony _moved_.

 

And not just your average walk. Tony moved like his life depended on it- launching himself forward and throwing himself into Steve’s arms with a force that would have toppled any normal man instantly. His mouth crashed into Steve’s, hot and fast and fucking messy- uncoordinated in a way Steve had barely ever seen in the man before.

He gasped in shock but reacted instantly. His hands drew around Tony’s slim waist and pulled him in, kissing back, giving as much as he got. He didn’t know what was happening, or why- all he knew was that Tony was kissing him, and so Steve had to make it good. The best. Before it went away forever.

Tony’s hands rose and clenched desperately at Steve’s hoodie, pushing them back and back and back until Steve hit the counter in his kitchen roughly, spilling stray glassware and files onto the floor as his hands found balance against the surface. Tony’s teeth scraped roughly over Steve’s bottom lip, moaning indecently as Steve pushed back against his pressure and licked into Tony’s mouth, hot and frantic. Steve had never kissed anyone like this before; not with this much passion, emotion, overwhelming _lust_ fizzing between the two of them. He felt like he was on fire with it.

His hands moved from Tony’s waist down to his ass, and Tony was like a man fucking possessed, rolling his hips forward and into Steve’s touch. This time it was Steve’s turn to groan, the friction sending lightning through his body as he leaned down and picked Tony up easily by the back of his thighs, desperate to be closer, as close as he could possibly fucking get. He’d dreamed about it a thousand times, but in reality the sensation of Tony’s body against his own was nothing that could even be explained or imagined. It was more. More than anything Steve could have fantasized about, more than just a feeling- Tony’s warmth encompassed him, his touch was everywhere, and Steve… Steve was electric with it.

Tony sounded like he was struggling to breathe at that point, and a moment later he was forced to break away for a single second just to suck in some air . His hands tugged violently through Steve’s hair, almost enough to hurt, but it only made Steve more desperate. He felt Tony’s legs wrap around his waist like a vice, heard the other man muttering his name over and over in between burning kisses as if it was all he knew- and Steve was hardly even thinking in coherent strands of consciousness any more- all there was was Tony. Tony kissing him, Tony’s fingers in his hair, body in Steve’s hands. It hardly felt real. He thought maybe it wasn’t; maybe it was just a ridiculously vivid dream again, like the one before where in five minutes he’d wake up alone and desperate for the love of someone he would never have, not really.

But for now, dream or not, it was happening. Steve was crazy with it. He could live in this delusion for the rest of his life, if this is what happened in it.

Tony tightened his legs around Steve’s waist and then rolled his hips again, long and arduous down upon Steve’s burning erection. He didn’t even bother attempting to mask his moan as his neck lost control and let his head fall heavily against the weak drywall that separated him and the next apartment along- they were being loud and they were going to disturb the fucking neighbours if they weren’t careful and Steve just _did not care._ Not one bit.

He walked three steps to the left until reaching the kitchen table and then shoved Tony down on it, pushing forward and forward until he was crawling up onto the table, covering Tony’s body with his own, their mouths never once leaving eachother. Tony was breathless and his hands shook against the sides of Steve’s face as he peppered frantic kisses over whatever part of Steve’s face he could get to: cheeks, jaw, eyebrow, chin.

Somewhere in the back of Steve’s mind, he realised that this couldn’t possibly be a dream. They never felt this good. Steve never felt this desperate.

And if it wasn’t a dream, then Steve, somewhere in his brain, knew that it was wrong. Tony wasn’t his. Tony didn’t want this, not really.

But something had just taken over him. He wouldn’t be able to stop of his own volition if the whole world fell apart around him. There was nothing else in the world, not right now. And Steve could deal with whatever consequences came next. It didn’t matter. Nothing except this mattered.

“Shirt,” Tony croaked, his voice ruined, “shirt, off, now,” his fingers yanked the zip on Steve’s hoodie and he shoved it off his broad shoulders, tossing it uncaringly to the side before getting to work on his tshirt. Steve was loathe to remove his hands from Tony’s waist, but he had to as he sat up onto Tony’s hips and then pulled off his shirt quicker than he’d ever done in his life before getting down once more, hands starting to reach and undo Tony’s tie first.

“Oh God,” Tony whispered as if he couldn’t help himsel, fingers trailing over the muscles on Steve’s stomach, “oh shit, oh fuck-“

Steve kissed him quiet and Tony did so rapidly, getting back to stroking up and down Steve’s bare chest. Steve felt like he was going to fucking explode if he didn’t get Tony’s pants off him in the next five seconds, but he wanted to make it good when he did. He wanted Tony to remember this. Their first and last time. He could do whatever the fuck he wanted with Mark later, could marry him and spend the rest of his life with him if that’s what he fucking wanted- but he’d never forget this. He’d never forget Steve.

He was going to make sure of it.

Angling his head downward, Steve pressed his mouth to the hollow of Tony’s throat, sucking gently and then gradually increasing the pressure as he ground his hips down into Tony’s, the friction between their two bodies almost unbearable. Tony whimpered, head thudding back to the table as he gave Steve more workroom. He was cursing a fucking blue streak again now that his mouth was no longer occupied with Steve’s, and his hands moved from Steve’s chest to the back of his neck, carding through the ends of his hair with a touch that Steve could almost imagine was loving. He pushed that to the back of his head and focused on unbuttoning Tony’s shirt, moving his mouth downward with each button that came undone. Tony’s body was so warm, his chest _glowed_ , he was…

He was everything.

Steve scraped his teeth across Tony’s abs as he got lower, hands smoothing their way over Tony’s chest in order to push his shirt off his shoulders, until he too was shirtless on Steve’s shitty table in his shitty apartment in shitty Washington. Tony’s legs rose again, resting over the crook of Steve’s arms as he breathed out yet another colourful curse, hips rocking up frantically. It was like he couldn’t get enough of Steve’s touch. He’d never felt more powerful, not in his entire life. He’d taken on armies and faced certain death and it was nothing like this. Nothing.

But then when Steve started to unzip Tony’s trousers, and he felt a hand suddenly clamp down and halt him. He looked up, and Tony’s face was completely fucking _agonised_.

“Stop,” he whispered, the words coming out so quiet they were mostly just huffs of air, “stop, I can’t. I can’t do this.“

No. No, they couldn’t stop now. They were so close. Steve was aching hard, single-mindedly focused on what was immediately in front of him, they couldn’t just… they couldn’t just _leave it._ “Please,” he pleaded, sensing something in Tony’s demeanour change- like he was forcing himself out of the moment that he’d been letting himself fall into, pulling back into reality. Steve didn’t want that to happen- not yet. He looked back down, kissing Tony’s stomach again between each word of prayer. “Please, please, just once, _please_ -“

Tony shook his head wildly. “Steve, I’m begging you,” he breathed, “please don’t ask me again. I won’t be able to say no if you ask again.”

God, Steve just wanted to be an asshole. He wanted to ask again- wanted to get what he wanted, just for fucking _once_ in his stupid life. It wasn’t fair. Tony was offering the opportunity on a plate. All Steve had to do was ask him, and he could have this. He didn’t know what had happened to make it real, didn’t know why or when or how- but it was here. In this second, it was here, and Steve wanted every part of Tony he could get his hands on. Any part at all.

But Tony didn’t want him to ask. And so Steve just couldn’t do it.

He clenched his eyes shut and let his forehead fall into Tony’s stomach. His hands were still gripping Tony’s thighs, but he let them slip off- and after a long moment Tony pulled away, shuffling backward on the table.

Silence fell, stagnant and huge.

“This isn’t fair,” Tony said throatily a few seconds later, and Steve didn’t look up at him- wasn’t strong enough, “this isn’t fucking fair, you can’t just… you can’t just throw that at me and then- and then expect me… _why now?”_ His voice was steadily getting louder, and Steve heard him scramble off the table, get back to standing position, ready to restart their fucking argument again like they hadn’t just been three seconds away from fucking on the table, _“why fucking now, Steve?_ Through all the months I bent over backwards for you, all the hoops I jumped through to make you happy, through my whole life of loving you, and you chose _now_ \- the one time that I’m, I’m happy with someone else- to say that actually, you feel the same?” He threw out his hands hysterically as Steve just looked at him, his face unreadable. “IT’S NOT FUCKING FAIR!”

“What -- what do you mean,” Steve asked, “’feel the same’? Are you trying to say… did you-”

“-Did I love you?” Tony yelled, before bursting into sharp, barking laughte. He was stood facing off with Steve, grabbing his shirt from where it had been flung carelessly onto the chair and then shoving it back onto his shoulders. He already looked like he’d been fucked- lips pink and wet with Steve’s spit, the faint red of a mark from where he’d scraped his teeth across Tony’s chest, hair stuck up in the places where Steve had run his hand through it. “Did I _FUCKING_ love you? Oh, I dunno; maybe ask the father who tore down all my posters and burnt my Cap toys because of my gross faggot obsession with you. Maybe ask Rhodey, who listened to me wax poetic about you when I was half-comatose on Whiskey and LSD during college, or Pepper, who left me as soon as you came onto the fucking scene because she knew- she knew that no one, _no one_ stood a chance if you were anywhere near me.” Tony turned away, face crumbling- oh God, he was crying- “Christ- I don’t even fucking _like_ Doctor Who! It’s a shitty, _shitty_ program. But I sat down and I watched it every week just so I could see you smile over it, so that you could have someone to get excited with. Baseball? You think I like _fucking baseball?”_ Tony pulled an incredulous face and wiped harshly at the stray tear which had fallen down his cheek, “baseball is a load of garbage. Sports in general is just fucking stupid. But you love it, and _I love you_ , and so I was like hey, you know, just fucking go. Who cares if you have board meetings or your whole life is falling apart? Steve likes fucking baseball. So go see the fucking baseball match with him, and then he’ll be happy, and that’s all you want, _right_ , you hopeless fucking idiot.”

Steve stared at him, jaw dropping. Tony wasn’t moving any more- his whole body had gone unnaturally still as he looked back at Steve, a broken expression covering his exhausted face.

“I have loved you for as long as I can remember, Steve Rogers,” Tony whispered, “and I hate you for telling me this now, when I’m happy, when I’m… when I have _Mark_ , who is _good_ , and _kind_ , and… Christ, who I just fucking cheated on because you decided to kiss me once and I suddenly forgot everything else in my life. _That’s_ what you do to me, Steve, you fucking prick.”

It was a different sort of agony, this. Not like the sharpness of what he’d had before, when he’d assumed Tony’s feelings would never be reciprocated. This was blunt, this was pressure, harsh and crushing on his chest. He could hardly even believe what Tony was saying at all. It just… it couldn’t be true. Tony didn’t love him. Tony had never even—he’d always made it so fucking _obvious_ , whenever he’d been attracted to someone. He’d never done that with Steve. Ever. Steve had fucking assumed- and rightly so- that it meant Tony didn’t feel for him in the same way.

 But the knowledge that, actually, he _had_ , was worse, Steve thought. Which was amazing, really, because he hadn’t thought it could possibly _get_ worse.

He could have had this. If he’d just opened his fucking eyes, he could have had this. God, he’d said it himself- Tony didn’t speak through words. He always spoke through his actions. It was like a picture-puzzle, unravelling in his head, all the little pieces coming together. Steve had been blind. All the times that Tony had cancelled whatever he was doing to be with Steve, all the moments when Tony had not even considered about putting anyone other than Steve first. The long smiles and the panicked eyes whenever Steve had been hurt.

Tony had loved Steve, all this time.

“You didn’t tell me either,” Steve said quietly, hands starting to clench into fists, “this- this isn’t all on me, okay, you didn’t say anything and you could’ve, and it all would have been fucking fine-“

“Don’t you dare pin this on me, Steve, I made it pretty fucking obvious-“

“And you think I _didn’t?”_ Steve asked incredulously, throwing his hands into the air, “you think I didn’t look at you like you were my whole fucking universe, you think I didn’t drop everything I had going on and run to you the moment you fucking called? If you asked me to jump I’d say how damn high, and then I’d end up going above and beyond anyway because _all I wanted_ was to be someone fucking worthy of you!” Steve wheezed, hands going to his hair and pressing down into his skull as he turned away. “I spent a month just planning how I was going to ask you on a date! I made everything perfect. I wanted so badly to be good enough. And then when I ask you as my plus one to the stupid _stupid_ fucking Veterans gala, who do you meet?”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Tony tense up, every part of his manic frame suddenly stilling into a dead stiffness. “What,” he said slowly, “that was… what do you mean-“

“It means I asked you out, Tony,” Steve said with a laugh, “I was terrified and anxious for pretty much the entire month trying to think of a way, a _perfect_ way- afterwards, I was going to have us eat in. Carlucci’s. Your favourite. There probably would have been candles, because I’m one of those assholes who likes all that corny shit that you probably would have hated. But I did it anyway. It was very well coordinated, actually, which is probably why it went so fucking wrong.” Steve’s lip curled, and he stared at the cupboards. “Guess you can’t strategize everything. Mark was a pretty considerable curveball, I’m not gonna lie.”

Tony choked. When Steve glanced over to him, he had a hand covering his face. He looked totally beaten.  Steve had nothing more to say, so he just clamped his mouth shut and then looked out of the window where the streetlight flickered on outside them. The world was still spinning on, surprisingly. Steve had kind of expected everything to just stop for a minute, allow them the time to just think.

But of course, that wasn’t how it ever worked in reality.

“I have to go,” Tony said after what felt like an eternity of silence, his voice void of any emotion, any life, “I’ve got- I’ve got work. And Mark. Mark is… he’ll be wondering where I am. Oh, _God_.”

Steve didn’t know what else he’d been expecting, really. Maybe one of those movie moments, where Tony declared that it was Steve he picked, that it was Steve he wanted, and then they could kiss again and it would all be okay. It wouldn’t be ruined.

The truth was a bitch.

“Sorry,” Steve told him, not taking his eyes off the window, “I shouldn’t have kissed you.”

“No. You shouldn’t. You’re a fucking selfish bastard.” Tony’s voice was wavering, angry, and he cleared his throat like he was going to say something else, but Steve never heard it. It didn’t make it out of his mouth.

A second later, he heard footsteps and a slamming door.

Steve was alone again. That was good. Now he could go back to sleep, and forget that he could have been with Tony if he’d just had the courage, that he could have still been home, with his team, had everything he’d ever wanted. He could forget the way Tony had felt under his hands, how his mouth had tasted, the noises he’d made when Steve had touched him, beautiful and yearning and more than anything Steve could ever have possibly dared to imagine.

He could forget all of it.

Clenching his eyes shut, he fell back against the counter and buried his head into his hands, shoulders hitching as his face crumbled and gave way to the hot, angry tears.

 

 

 

 

_

 

 

 

 

The days passed by somewhat blurrily after that.

Steve mostly stayed in the apartment, running through SHIELD files and trying to get to the bottom of their latest obsession with Steve’s super-soldier serum. He’d woken up on the first morning after Tony had left and had to clean up all the mess he’d made from where he’d shoved all the stuff off the counter so he could sit Tony there instead. Broken glasses and messy files, mostly. Steve saw Sally’s number amongst the rubble, and threw it away with the rest of the broken things. He tried to avoid the kitchen after that.

Whatever he did, though, he couldn’t get the taste of Tony’s mouth off his tongue. It lingered there like an awful pleasure, refusing to leave. Steve remembered things in vivid clarity- touch, smell, taste, sounds- it all stayed with him. It was why he was so good at filing mission reports.

It also meant that the moments he’d spent with Tony in his arms, however, brief, were now burned permanently into his mind.

He tried not to think about it. Tony wouldn’t want him to, because what had happened was wrong. Steve didn’t know if Tony had told Mark or not, or if they were even still together. He had been avoiding the team’s calls ever since. He couldn’t really say he was in the talking mood right now.

Tony had loved him. Tony had loved him, and that still hadn’t been enough.

People called him a lot over those next few days, but Steve avoided his phone as much as he could. He didn’t want to hear his team now. Didn’t want their questions, their ‘what happened that night?’s. He just… needed to concentrate on forgetting it. All of it. He’d had that kiss, he’d gotten his answer, and now it was done. Now Tony was back home, with Mark, and the answer had been clear enough.

Tony hadn’t chosen him.

Steve didn’t dwell on it, though. No. He just continued on with his life. Did his mission reports, completed some PR tasks, trained, then trained some more. The apartment was different, and silent and lonely, but that was refreshing in a way, too. No one to bother him at four in the morning with a request to join in on some stupid prank, no arguments to try and diffuse which involved forcibly restraining angry Russian women from their partners as they both cursed each other out across the room. It was peaceful.

Peaceful and terribly lonely, too. But Steve didn’t think too much about that, either. It wouldn’t get him anywhere.

There were only so many punching bags that a man could destroy before the rest of the people in the gym started to look at you funny, and so after a week or two had passed, Steve decided to take on another infiltration mission, this time in New Mexico. It had the same themes as all the previous ones over the last few months had been: Recreating Project Rebirth, and so really, Steve was the best man for the job. He went with the STRIKE team that included Brock Rumlow, and the guy was kind of an asshole, but Steve didn’t mind. He was good at what he did. And anything at this point was a welcome distraction. Even if they were irritating ones.

“You ready Cap?” He asked as they prepared to exit and try get through the first defence of the compound.

Steve shrugged. “Probably not. HYDRA like to surprise us. But we should take them down easily enough. We know their game when it comes to the science division, at least. They don’t fight. They run. And we can use that to our advantage.”

Rumlow nodded and, without another word, he signalled for them all to exit the vehicle and they began the push.

This one was more strongly fortified than the others, but Steve still slipped through their defences easily, leaving the rest of the STRIKE team to act as his diversion as he went in and headed for the main computer base that they knew was located down on the far right wing of the building. Most of the HYDRA agents were out fighting at the front, and so Steve’s way was relatively clear. He kept to the shadows and silently incapacitated anyone who got in his way, unwilling to make a mess and risk detection. It wasn’t long before the room that he was searching for loomed up, guarded by two men with sub-machine guns wearing the HYDRA crest on their chests with pride.

Steve took pleasure in cutting them both down with his shield. Nazi fucks.

Slipping through into the control room, he ducked the swinging punch that flew out to meet him and then twisted, spinning out his legs in order to make his attacker drop. He did so with an ungraceful thump, and Steve made quick work of slamming his boot into the man’s temple and knocking him out cold. There was no one else in the room after that- just lots and lots of screens.

Steve pulled the two guards outside in through the door and then shut it quietly before hurrying over to the large computer panel at the centre. He didn’t know much about hacking, but he knew how to insert a USB, and he was pretty sure whatever virus that was inside would do the rest for him. Quickly locating a port, he uncapped the device and then slotted it in, watching as it quickly decrypted the information and then tossed it up on the screen for Steve to look at. The SHIELD tech team had said something complicated about how they were unable to actively remove the data without triggering a self destruct, but they could still access the files for Steve to photograph and then send back to base. That was good enough for him.

He pulled out his phone from his utility belt and then stepped back, taking a picture of the whole screen as dozens of files popped into view. Then he got to work sorting through them all, trying to find what was useful and what was not. Most of it was just data- test results, it looked like. Steve stared at it in concern, rapidly snapping his camera. It looked like they’d already tested on dozens of subjects. And it seemed that most of them had died, too. Painfully.

Steve grimaced. Of course, HYDRA wouldn’t let something as inconsequential as death stop them from getting the answers they needed.

After five minutes of filing through all the records he could find, he paused when he saw an anomaly. It wasn’t any details of medical records or test projects, and instead was titled as audios. Steve pulled it up, clicking on the subtitle that read as ‘test subject 01’.

By the end of it, he really wished he hadn’t. It had started out innocently enough- one of the scientists was asking them questions, health checkups, why they’d agreed to trials. But then they’d actually begun. Then the conversations had turned to screams. Begging. And then at the end of the recording, the scientist in charge of the audio had simply finished with ‘test subject 01 deceased. Causes are yet unknown. Test subject 02 to be brought in shortly.’

It was vile. Steve wanted to be sick.

He decided to miss out the rest of the Test Subject audios, and instead turned to a different subtitle- Phone Calls. Steve saw hundreds of name pairings- ‘Cho, Helen + Rogers, Steven’ being among them. That one had, luckily, been about something that had nothing at all to do with the Serum, which led Steve to believe that these wiretappings had to be randomly done. They didn’t know when or where any conversations would take place, so they were just tapping as many as they could and hoping to get lucky. Steve scrolled through the long list: ‘Odinson, Thor + Stark, Anthony’ ‘Rogers, Steven + Foster, Jane’ , ‘Cho, Helen + Selvig, Erik’ were all among the names. He checked them all, and luckily they too came up clean.

When he reached the bottom of the folder, he noticed that there was a small sub-division at the very bottom. Three files. They read as ‘Test Subject 93 + Stark, Anthony’.

Steve frowned, clicking on the first one. That seemed odd. Why was Tony talking to a HYDRA test subject?

 

“Remind me again, are you a black coffee kinda guy or a latte kinda guy?” Mark’s voice spoke fondly down the line, and Steve’s stomach plummeted a mile straight downward.

 

“Oh come on,” Tony responded, and Steve rapidly checked the date- this was over a month ago, “how do you not know this by now? I’m a black coffee. Steve likes lattes though- you could get one for him if you want.”

He lurched forward to the keypad, finding the search bar on the system and then typing out ‘Test Subject 93’ with rapid fingers as the conversation continued around him.

“Will it make him not look like he wants to kill me?” Mark asked, “If so, then sure, I’m game.”

Tony sighed. “He doesn’t… he’s just not too great with strangers, that’s all. He’ll warm up to you eventually. I know he will. Oh, and hey, that just reminded me- I’m gonna have to cancel on you this weekend, Mark. I’m really sorry. Something cropped up.”

Steve tapped his hands impatiently against his hips as he waited for the results to loud up on the crappy monitor, hearing Mark’s splutter of surprise through the speakers.

“What?” He said in annoyance, “Tony, we’ve been planning this for weeks. I’ve already packed my bags, what do you mean?“

“I’m just… it turns out I’m busy,” Tony said hurriedly, “we’ll do it another time, I promise.”

“What are you doing, anyway?” Mark asked exasperatedly, “has something in SI popped up again? Goddam it- I wish they’d leave you alone.”

“Uh-“ Tony almost sounded guilty as he said, “not exactly.”

“Then _what?”_

Tony was quiet for a moment, before blurting “Steve said he wanted to hang out. Catch a movie. I didn’t— I didn’t want to miss it. It’s been so long since I—since we hung out.”

Steve blinked at the mention of his name, looking up. There was a beat of silence, and then Mark’s voice came through again, a little harder this time. “So you’re ditching our month-in-advance planned weekend break away in Hawaii… to watch a movie. With Steve.”

“I don’t know when he’s gonna ask again!” Tony argued, and the desperation in his voice made Steve’s heart stutter, “I can’t – this is important. I’ve got to try and get this right.”

“Of course you do,” Mark told him with a small, snappy laugh, “you know, sometimes I wonder if there’s ever going to be a day when you actually put me first instead of him.”

Tony said nothing, and then there was the sound of a dial tone as Mark obviously hung up the phone. Steve didn’t have much time to dwell on it, however, because a second later all the results popped up, larger than life on screen.

There were dozens of files about Test Subject 93. Steve bent over the keypad and typed furiously, searching through until he found what he was looking for. The main file on the server; the ones that HYDRA kept on all their staff, their test subjects, everyone and anyone who came into the building.

It was the digital copy of what Steve had seen that time in the secret room, before it had been burned to bits.

It had Mark’s face on it.

Steve’s breath hitched and he yanked his phone out again, dialling Tony’s number in panic. Of course, though, there was no fucking reception. And as tempted as Steve was to just run out there and fuck the mission entirely, he knew it wouldn’t help in the long run. Steve needed to know what Mark was there for. It could save Tony’s life.

Oh God. Steve should have fucking listened to his gut all those months ago; should have just thrown Mark out of the fucking window like he’d promised. Jesus _Christ_.

Steve searched up the most recent file that they had on the server. The 21st. Only a day ago. It was another audio file, this time between ‘Test subject 93 + LEAD OP TEAM’.

“Why are you contacting me?” Mark hissed when Steve opened it up, “I’m not- I told you, I was quitting the fucking division, alright, I want no part in this any more, you don’t get to make threats like that- remember, I’ve got the Avengers on side now. They can find you.”

The person on the other end just laughed. “You think you can just leave?” He asked, “when you have the only semi-stable variation of the super serum running through your veins? Think again, Mr. Stead.”

 _Stead._ Mark’s last name wasn’t Stead, it was Richards. So he had a fake name, then. His cover must have been brilliant, for him to get past JARVIS’ checks. Steve had a firm feeling that if he checked the recent obituaries, a very familiar name would pop up- that had to be how he’d done it. How he’d fabricated an entire life for himself that had been real enough to get through all their security. Steve was almost impressed.

Mark breathed heavily. “What do you want?” He gritted out eventually.

“We want Tony Stark,” the man said simply, and Steve’s heart stopped beating in his chest.

No.

“We tried doing it in your ‘nonviolent’ way,” the man continued breezily, “but your methods proved ineffective. You got no information that was of value to us. So now we want him, and we will take the knowledge through force.”

“No,” Mark said, “No, absolutely not. I am a scientist. A _doctor_. I agreed to try and help you find another way to remake Project Rebirth, not become your personal attack dog. Anyway-“ he paused, the tension almost tangible through the phone, “- I care about him. He’s… he’s a good person. I know I agreed to pretend at first, but now what I feel is real. I won’t let you hurt him.”

Steve snarled, hands clenching tight enough around the desk that he felt the metal give way under his grip. Real? _This_ was what Mark was calling real love, was it?

“Oh, you don’t exactly have much of a choice,” The smooth voice responded easily, not even sounding put-out, “Remember Mr. Stead: when you joined, you handed your life’s work to us. All that research, all those hard facts you’d been so carefully collating over the years. It would be a shame to have it destroyed, but if we need to use it as our-- well, let’s call it our insurance policy-- then you know exactly where will go. Do not try and act like you have the upper hand here. No one has the upper hand on HYDRA.”

Mark’s silence spoke volumes. “That is my entire career you are using as a fucking bargaining chip - you can’t- that’s not… that work could save _millions_ of lives,” he whispered, “I thought that is what you vowed you wanted to do.”

“And in order to do that, we need Tony Stark,” came the response, “so you have 24 hours to bring him in. Or we burn your work to the ground, and then take you with it. Goodnight, Mr. Stead.”

Steve felt like he couldn’t breathe, and he looked down rapidly at his watch, checking the times. The message had been sent 20 hours ago.

Oh God. Tony would have been taken by now.

No. No no no no no no no-

Mark was a plant. He’d been sent in to gather intel about Steve and Steve’s serum, obviously being spun the usual HYDRA lie about doing the work for a better future, and now he was going to take Tony to them, and they were going to try and force the information out of him. They must have decided that he was the prime candidate. He was the one who knew the most.

Which was probably true. From a science point of view, there was no one else alive today who knew as much as Tony did.

Oh Christ.

Steve should never have fucking left the tower.

His boots were running across the floor, jumping the desks and then slamming back out of the doors violently. He could feel his heart beating like a drum right up in his ears, deafening him- the only noise in a silent compound. He just had to get out of the fucking building, get some reception- then he could call Tony.

And if Tony didn’t reply, then Steve was going to find Mark. And they were going to have a talk.

“Cap?” Someone barked down his comm, “Cap, are you finished up? We need you out ‘round the back-“

“Negative, Rumlow,” Steve snapped, shouldering his way through another door and then punching the HYDRA agent he ran into in the throat, “I’ve got to get back to SHIELD immediately. Code red, Fury just contacted me himself. I’ve got the relevant information anyway- just clean up in here, it shouldn’t take long.”

He heard the other man splutter in outrage and begin to snarl out something, but Steve just snatched the thing out of his ear and threw it. He didn’t have time for that. Didn’t have time for anything other than Tony.

After about thirty seconds of blind running and slamming his way through door after door, he finally spotted a fire exit and then sped up his pace, hurtling through it so quickly the door came off its hinges. Steve didn’t wait- grabbing his phone, he hurriedly unlocked it with the intention of pulling it up to his ear and ringing Tony. Turned out, though, he didn’t have to. There were already fifteen missed calls from the rest of the team, and ten new messages.

Steve knew, before he even dialled Bruce’s number, what he was going to hear.

“Cap, you need to get home,” Bruce said as soon as the call rang through- no hello, no smalltalk, no nothing, “Tony’s… he’s gone. We don’t know where and we don’t know _how_ , but he was getting lunch with me one minute and then he went to the bathroom and—and he never came back to the table.”

Steve shut his eyes, knees going weak under him.

Too late. Always too late.

“Cap?” Bruce asked, voice urgent, “Cap, are you listening? You have to come back. We need help.“

“I’m on my way,” Steve told him, swallowing down the panic, the fear. That wasn’t going to help Tony. “And I’m gonna have to explain a few things to you on the way there. I think they’re gonna be useful.”

“What ‘things’?”

Steve’s face hardened, and he forced himself not to grip the phone too tight and crush it.

 “It was Mark who kidnapped him.”

 

 

 

 

_

 

 

 

 

He got back to the Tower via the quinjet that Natasha flew in to pick him up, and they were home within the hour. After that, it had been a lot of explaining, a lot of attempting to hold back the burning inferno of hot, heavy rage under his ribs, and a lot of questions as the rest of the team tried to form the best picture they could.

“So he was a HYDRA scientist,” Bruce confirmed darkly, “trying to pick Tony’s brain for information. About you.”

“Why didn’t he just try and get in _your_ pants, then?” Natasha asked with a cock of her head, “why go through him?”

“Does it _matter_?” Steve snapped, “he did it. And now Tony’s gone.”

She gazed at him coolly, arms folding. “Having all the facts gives us a better picture, Steve. Don’t let your anger take over your judgement.”

For a second, Steve just glared back challengingly. But he knew she was right, and she knew she was right, and so eventually he had to back down, clenching his jaw and averting his gaze. “He probably went there because Tony was… more available, I guess. People don’t assume I swing that way.”

“That makes sense,” Clint said with a frown, “and then once he was in, it was just a question of trying to find the right time to slip in the right questions.”

“Which he apparently didn’t do very well at,” Thor finished, lips pursing, “and then at some point, he started to genuinely develop feelings for Tony, so he quit. Except they didn’t take that. So they decided to have him bring Tony to them.”

“And that leads us to the question of where exactly they are now,” Clint declared, turning to the large US map on the screen in Tony’s workshop. “Anyone got any ideas?”

No. They hadn’t. Which meant that after that, it had just been a guessing game whilst they sent out feelers and tried to retrace Tony and Mark’s steps. Steve himself wasn’t much use, seeing as it was mostly just trawling through CCTV footage, and so he allowed himself to simply simmer in the corner and beat himself up. One of the pastimes that was becoming more and more frequent, lately.

He felt like he hadn’t taken a proper breath in the five hours since he’d found out that Tony was gone. Nothing else was on his mind except the fact that Steve had fucking known- he’d known this months ago, but he’d ignored it. He’d been fucking stupid.

And now… fuck- what were they doing to him? They’d said they were going to force the information out of him- what did that involve? How much would it hurt? Was Tony somewhere right now, screaming as they—as they—

 

Suddenly, before his brain had even comprehended it, his legs were up and running, out of the workshop, away from the team. His hands smashed against the workshop doors as they barged out rapidly, his chest stuttering to a total halt as the panic consumed him. He wanted to be sick. He hadn’t thrown up in ninety years, but maybe this would do it.

It was Steve’s fault. It was Steve’s fault. He’d seen that file, months and months ago, and he’d sat back and done _nothing_. And now Tony was paying for it. Now Tony had been stabbed in the back, again, by someone he thought he could trust.

When Steve found Mark, he was going to tear him limb from fucking limb.

“Hey,” someone said behind him and Steve spun rapidly, spotting Clint jogging over to him. Obviously Steve had been noticed in his hasty exit back there, then. “Hey Steve, I know this is a lot. Take a second. You need a drink of water or something?”

“I saw the file HYDRA had on Mark months ago,” Steve blurted, wheezing as he leaned heavily against the wall out in the corridor and tucked his head into his hands, “it was there on a pile of information that was burned before I could see it properly. I thought I was imagining it because…”

“Because you already hated him, and you just assumed it was your bias leaking through,” Clint finished for him, “that’s a valid assumption to make, Steve. And I mean, hey- least you get the validation of being right. Now you really _do_ have a reason to hate his guts.”

Steve huffed in a half-laugh. “Damn right I do. Knew I wasn’t crazy.”

“We’ll find him, Steve,” Clint told him firmly, a hand resting against his shoulder, “we always do.”

Steve just nodded, swallowing down the lump in his throat. Of course they were going to find him. Doing anything else just wasn’t an option.

 

Of course, the first lead came from somewhere none of them ever could have expected.

 

“Avengers, it appears that Mark has re-entered the building,” JARVIS’ voice told them a few hours later, just as darkness was beginning to fall. His voice was cool and hard. “Shall I initiate defence protocols?”

Everyone else stood up rapidly, but Steve was already one step ahead. “No,” he growled at JARVIS, “I’ve got this.”

“Steve, Steve wait-” Someone called out behind him, but Steve didn’t even bother turning around as he sprinted out of the door and then made his way down the corridor, jumping up the stairs five at a time. JARVIS told him he was in the elevator heading for the communal kitchen, and although Steve had absolutely no idea why the man would even dare show his face in the tower, he didn’t much care either. That part wasn’t his problem.

His problem was how exactly he was going to deal with the shitbag, now that he was within reach. Steve had a few ideas- none of them were particularly pleasant.

He made it to the kitchen in record time, and was hardly even out of breath after the sprint. As he rounded the corner, the elevator doors opened and none other than the traitorous bastard himself stepped out, looking nervously around him. He noticed Steve immediately- a guy with a face like that was pretty hard to miss- and immediately reeled back. “Captain,” he began, but Steve was already running, his lip curled in a snarl as he launched himself forward and reached out a hand, quickly curling it around Mark’s throat. The man screamed, kicking out his legs and scrabbling his nails across Steve’s grip, but it felt like nothing at all- completely inconsequential.

Steve just hauled him out, into the kitchen, over to the opposite end where the huge glass windows were. “You remember that conversation we had before, huh?” He growled, _“huh?_ Well guess what, you piece of shit- when I make a promise, I actually stick to it.”

“CAPTAIN WAIT!” Mark choked, eyes bulging, “I know where he is, I want to help you find him, but you won’t ever make it in time if I’m dead!”

Steve felt his heart clench at the ominous words. “What do you mean- ‘in time’?” He hissed, hearing as the rest of the team sprinted into the room behind him.

Mark choked, and Steve noticed his face starting to go an unattractive shade of puce, and so after a second he let him go uncaringly, watching as the man crumbled weakly to the floor in a coughing fit. Natasha was on him in an instant, pulling the back of his collar and forcing him upright.

“Tell us everything you know,” she said to him bluntly, “and tell us quickly.”

He coughed some more, looking on the verge of tears. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, “I’m sorry, I had to, they were going to destroy my work, kill me-“

“I don’t _care,”_ Steve snarled, curling his hand into a fist and resisting the urge to smack it across the pathetic man’s face. Thor laid a hand over his arm and tugged him back in warning.

“Where is he?” Clint asked coldly, “where did you take him to?”

“A collection point on the border into Canada,” Mark wheezed, “but they’ll have moved him by now. I know where they’re going though. There’s only one facility that has the technology they need. And I know how to get in there.” He looked up at them all miserably. “I know what I’ve done. Believe me, this… this is never, ever what I wanted. Please let me help.”

Steve opened his mouth to say something cutting, but Bruce stepped in with a face of concern, “what facilities do they need? What is it that they’re planning on doing to him?”

Mark swallowed, looking rapidly between them all. “I— they have a lab. When we were testing formulae for the Super Soldier Serum, we found something else that was useful. It was a drug- one they could use alongside a set of machinery to… to see inside your mind, per se. Make you susceptible. Feel like you were in a dream. It was incredibly successful in the short term, but I… you have to know that I didn’t want it, okay, I told them to get rid of it-“

 _“What does it do?”_ Steve hissed, cutting off the excuses.

Mark was silent as he bit his lip. “The patients they tested it on… after about twenty hours of having the drug in their system, they started to… become unstable. Intense suicidal urges, screaming, incoherence, hallucinations. Brain-death took about 26 hours. Those who resisted took even less time.”

Steve reeled back in horror. It had already been about seven hours since Tony had first been taken. They had a window of 19 hours to save him and get him to a hospital, or he was going to die.

Thor’s hand held him tighter. “Well then,” he said with a sharp nod, “we better get moving then, mustn’t we?”

 

 

 

 

_

 

 

 

 

Steve was silent on the journey there, watching Mark the whole time whilst he was strapped into the Quinjet.

It could be a trap. A diversion. Anything other than the truth, really.

But this was the only lead they had. And Steve had heard the conversation between Mark and the HYDRA team on the phone earlier at the other facility. He’d seemed genuine. And that… that was just going to have to be enough for now. They didn’t really have any other options.

They made it over to the North-Eastern coast of Canada in about an hour. Mark gave them the coordinates to the compound that he said they’d taken Tony to, and when Clint searched the spot, it did indeed come up with signs of life there. At least Mark was telling the truth about that one.

“So what’s our plan?” Thor said, flexing his arms and gripping his hammer tight.

Glances were flicked everywhere, no-one knowing who should take charge. Usually it would have been Steve, but they all knew that in this scenario it was hardly as if he was thinking straight.

He looked down, and then waved to Natasha. “Over to you,” he muttered.

She let her hand rest on his shoulder for a moment, before slipping away and standing in the middle of the room. “We can’t afford to try and reach Tony all-guns-blazing,” she began seriously, “we have no idea how hurt he could be, and asking him to fight his way out is impossible. We’re gonna have to divert, distract and then a small group can retrieve. Thor and Steve, that one’s up to y-“

“I have to go too,” Mark interrupted, shying away when the hard glares of five terrifying avengers stared him down.

“I think you’ve already done plenty,” Clint told him coldly.

“No, you don’t understand. I know all the entry codes. The route. If you want a stealth approach, I’m the best option you have. The place is like a fucking maze- without me, you’ll only be flying blind. Not to mention, the sector of the building he’s in is maximum security. Any force gets exerted on those doors, any man in one of those watch-towers sounds an alarm- they cut the whole thing off with six feet of solid steel and then blow the entire sector up. That’s how important it is for them to keep their knowledge a secret. And that’s why you need me.”

The team were silent. Steve wanted nothing more than to strangle Mark where he stood, but he couldn’t, because it was quite possible that he was the only way they’d be getting Tony out of here alive. And boy, did he hate that thought.

Mark knew the access codes. Mark _was_ HYDRA. He was their in, and they all knew it.

“Mark,” Natasha said, her voice clipped as she swivelled her head and looked at Steve, “Cap- you two both go. Thor, you monitor those watchtowers like there is no tomorrow- we cannot let them sound an alarm. The last thing we need is a building falling on top of Tony as well.”

Steve nodded shortly, seeing Mark look over at him in fear on the other side of the room. “If you try anything, or attempt to call for help, I will snap your fucking neck before you can even open your damn mouth,” he told the other man coldly, hoisting his shield up to his back and then folding his arms as he glared.

Mark shuddered, but he nodded. “I understand.”

Steve just grunted and turned back to the rest of the team. They all talked rapidly, quickly evaluating the scene and then putting their plan into action within ten minutes of landing. While everyone else quietly snuck out and headed over to the front of the building where they intended to stage a very large-scale attempted breakthrough, Steve was going to take Mark and then slip in through the back, quietly making their way to the control room in order to find where they were keeping Tony and then heading there as quietly and quickly as possible.

It would work. Steve knew it would work. It had to.

Mark didn’t try to run as they disembarked off the jet and then made their way around the perimeter. He looked completely terrified, but his steps were firm and his jaw clenched with determination. He quickly guided Steve through the defences and traps that had been set around the compound, and in under five minutes they’d gotten to the fire escape at the back of the building.

Mark glanced at Steve, and then stepped forward, typing out the passcode on the keypad next to the door. Steve just glared right at him, his expression carved in disgust. He had nothing to say to a nazi like that. God- the thought that they’d been living under the same roof, that Mark had been sleeping in the same bed as Tony every single night… it was sickening. They’d hosted a member of HYDRA and no-one had even fucking noticed. Steve had sat back and done jack-shit, letting this bastard run amok in their lives.

He couldn’t stop thinking about the file he’s seen, months and months ago. If only he’d been better. Faster. More on the ball. They’d never even have been in this situation if Steve had just kept it together and done his fucking job.

And now, instead, he was relying on a fucking Nazi to save Tony Stark.

Mark seemed to sense the judgement, because he swallowed and then looked down as his hand went to the door handle. “I only wanted to help people,” he murmured, “I had ideas. Plans. They could have saved so many people, but the scientists in charge at my research facility said it was too dangerous. Too ‘risky’. So they cut my funding and refused to let me continue my work. I had no other choice- and then HYDRA offered me a place, offered me the ability to finish, to _help-“_

“Don’t try and excuse everything you’ve done under the pretence that it was for a good cause,” Steve snarled low in his throat, “you’re a smart man. You knew what joining HYDRA meant. And you did it anyway- because you were blinded by your own desires.”

Mark opened the door with a face of misery. “I know,” he said, “I know all of that, Captain. It was… it was with good intention, at first, but somewhere along the way… Geez, I’ve just gotten so lost.” He looked helplessly over to Steve, shaking his head. “I only wanted to do the science that everyone else refused to let me do. When they introduced the idea of recreating your serum to try and heal the sick, I became obsessed with the concept. I headed the push to try and find the information we needed. I spent hours and hours curating files on everyone who could know even the slightest little thing.”

“You killed nearly a hundred people through the experimentation process,” Steve added coldly, pushing him forward down the empty corridor with his shield raised. He could hear the bangs and explosions starting up faintly, and figured that the rest of the team were probably getting to work.

Mark cleared his throat. “I thought it was a necessary evil,” he mumbled, “thought that HYDRA and I had the same core ideals. And it _did_ improve. It did. I was confident enough that I used one of the doses on myself, and it worked- my arrhythmia of the heart, it just… it just vanished a few days after the trial.”

Mark’s face soured. “But it wasn’t enough. Not for HYDRA. They- they wanted the strength element, too. Saying it was for medical purposes had always been a lie- I realise that now- but at the time, I was high on the success of our discovery. I agreed. I wanted to know your secret too.”

“So you inserted yourself into our lives- _Tony’s_ life- to try and get those secrets,” Steve finished, lip curled in disgust.

“I thought it was for the greater good!” Mark hissed, and before Steve even knew what he was doing he’d taken Mark by the collar and then slammed him up against the wall, his face curled into a snarl of rage.

“You _used_ him,” he spat, “Tony cared about you and you used him. You’re fucking lucky that you’re still breathing for that. If I had it my way, that’d be very different. As it is, just know that you’re not going near him again after this. That’s a promise.”

Mark looked at him with shameful eyes. “I care about him back, you know,” he muttered, “but anyway, that won’t be a problem. He broke up with me last week. And I’m guessing you can tell me the reason wh -.”

Steve paused in his walk down the corridor, interrupting Mark with a wave of his hand. “He _what?”_

Mark frowned and then opened his mouth to speak- but in that moment, Steve’s enhanced hearing picked up the faint sounds of footsteps somewhere down the corridor, and he quickly lurched forward and closed a hand around Mark’s mouth to silence him. He pushed them both back around the corner and then crouched, shield raised high as he peeked around the corner. “Quiet,” he ordered Mark, raising a hand.

Luckily, the footsoldiers came and went right past them without fuss- they were obviously heading out as reinforcements to the main fight going on at the front gates. Steve breathed out calmly, easing himself back into a walking pace as he shoved Mark forward. In his head, a million thoughts were turning around and around.

Tony had broken up with Mark. Last week. Which must have been after he and Steve had kissed. What did that mean?

Obviously, Tony must have just felt too guilty. The press liked to talk a lot of shit, but at the end of the day Tony never usually stepped out of line in the way that he had with Steve that night. He would have hated to keep it hidden from Mark, and so must have admitted it to them and then Mark must have broken things off. That was what it was.

Except from what Mark had said, Tony was the one who had broken up with him. So that made no sense. Tony could still have felt guilty though, and just not wanted to hurt Mark by telling him.

“I know what you did, by the way,” Mark said as he entered the code in for the next set of doors. When the light flashed green, he yanked it open and then turned to Steve with a small, sad smile. “He told me. And then ended things. Said it wasn’t fair to me to keep things up when he wasn’t ever going to stop having feelings for you.”

Steve stared at him blankly, but Mark only laughed. “God, I can’t even blame him. I mean how could I even hope to compete? You’re Captain America. I could see he loved you even when we were together. I was okay to just deal with it and move on. Obviously he wasn’t.”

 _That_ was why Tony had broken up with Mark? Because he….

Because he still had feelings for Steve.

 _Not the right time,_ he cursed at himself as he blinked and then looked down the corridor _, focus up on what’s important._ “Where to now?” He snapped, changing the conversation before he could stray any further.

Mark pointed left, and so that was where they crept. As they went further in, Mark mentioned that the corridors would begin to get more well-guarded, and so Steve made sure to tread lightly and watch out around every corner they turned through. In his chest, he could feel his heart beating at a mile a minute. The corridors felt endless- like he would never reach Tony in time. Every minute they wasted walking was a minute that Tony was in pain.

Eventually, however, they did come face to face with the door of the CCTV operations room. Seeing as the place was on lockdown, Steve couldn’t break or otherwise force his way through the electromagnetic seal, and Mark only had access codes for general entry routes, not specific rooms. In the end, however, it didn’t pose much of a problem. Not for Steve, anyway.

“What are you _doing?”_ Mark hissed, stumbling back as Steve knocked a knuckle three times sharply against the door, “they’re going to come out and see us!”

“That’s the plan,” Steve said with a nod, before turning back to the door just as it opened up to reveal a rather confused HYDRA technician holding a gun nervously in his hand.

Steve didn’t bother with intricacies. He punched the man in the throat, grabbing the weapon and twisting it out of his hands before he’d even had the opportunity to raise it. Mark yelped and stepped back as Steve threw the unconscious agent back and then marched into the room determinedly, his shield hoisted high and his jaw set. “Follow me.”

All in all, it took less than seven seconds to rid the room of all threats. The guys had mostly just been computer scientists anyway- not much of a threat in the fighting department. Steve could admit though, he’d been pretty surprised to see Mark get his hands dirty and knock out a good handful of agents- although it was explained pretty quickly when Mark saw him looking.

“I got dosed, remember?” He muttered breathlessly, looking down at the faintly twitching technician under his feet, “not to _your_ levels, but… I can hold my own.”

Steve looked at him with sharp eyes, grunting once in acknowledgement and then turning away. “Put your strength to good use and guard the door then,” he muttered, “I need to find where they’re keeping him.”

Mark paused in apprehension for a moment, but when Steve shot him a crippling glare the man just swallowed down his fear and nodded, turning away. Steve wasted no more time on him after that- his fingers went straight to the keyboard in front of him as he pulled up all their CCTV footage. There were hundreds of rooms in the building altogether, but Mark was convinced that Tony was kept on this sector, and that narrowed it down considerably. There were only a dozen or so here, and after looking up a few empty rooms or shut-down labs, he eventually found what he was looking for, and he felt his breath catch in his throat as the grainy image of Tony flickered onto the monitor in front of him.

He was on his knees in the middle of an empty room. At the back, the wall was made up of electronics, machinery- all sorts of equipment that Steve had never seen before in his life. He figured that was probably what Mark had been talking about earlier- the machines they used alongside the drugs to simulate some sort of dream state. Tony looked like he wasn’t bound at all, but when Steve glanced closer he saw a set of heavy manacles around his wrists, chained down to a grate on the floor. Tony’s head was bent low, and he gently swayed every few seconds, like he was forcing himself to stay upright.

Steve’s fingers tightened around the desk hard enough that he heard metal groan underneath them. Tony was in a bad way- that much was clear within the first second.

He leaned in closer, reading the title of the CCTV tab- ‘SECTOR16 / B-CORRIDOR / LAB485’. They had already got into the right sector, so now all he needed to find was room 485 on the B corridor. Simple enough.

Then he realised that the video also had audio, because he heard a voice start up in the laboratory Steve was watching- smooth and smug and dangerous in a way that made Steve’s hackles rise straight up and stand on end.

“Your resistance is impressive,” the man declared as a shoe tapped over the stone floor and another grainy figure stepped into view, “you’ve held out for longer than any of our other patients. God, how I’d love to dissect your brain. What an amazing thing that would be.”

Steve audibly growled into the empty room, standing back onto his heels and preparing to turn away and sprint to Laboratory 485 as fast as he could- but the sound of his own name stopped him in his tracks, and he twisted his head back down the monitor in faint surprise.

“Why are you still trying to protect Steve Rogers’ secrets?” Came the question, as the man got closer to Tony and then crouched down onto his haunches. “It would be so easy to just give them up. It would stop all this pain and unhappiness. And it’s not like the Captain would care, is it? I’ve seen inside your head, remember, Tony. I know that he doesn’t love you. Not really. Not in the same way that you love him.”

Steve felt rooted to the spot for the first time in years, unable to even blink as he watched this sick HYDRA fuck lift his hand and then grab Tony’s jaw, forcing his head upright to look at him. There was a twisted, awful smile on the other man’s face as he took Tony in.

“He doesn’t care about you- not as a lover, not even as a friend,” he whispered, and Steve watched the way Tony, even in his semi-conscious state, flinched sharply at the words, “he wouldn’t mind if you just told us what we wanted. And you do want to, don’t you? Deep down?”

 _Just tell them,_ Steve wanted to shout, _just do it, it doesn’t matter, it’s not worth this-_

Instead, Tony spat in his face.

Of course he did. Survival instincts of a fucking _moth_ , Jesus fucking Christ- Steve breathed sharply in distress, letting the shock of Tony’s actions bring him back to reality. God, what was he even still doing here? He needed to find Tony, not just fucking watch him through a screen. What in the name of god was wrong with him?

He turned his back and desperately tried to ignore the sound of a fist hitting flesh as he left the room. Once he got to Tony, he’d kill whichever man had laid a hand on him. He just had to concentrate on making it there first.

Taking Mark firmly by the arm as he marched out, he shoved the man forward and then waved a hand. “B Corridor, Lab 485. How do we get there?”

Mark closed his eyes briefly as he pulled up the layout of the building in his head. “Three lefts, take the second right, straight down for a minute then a shallow left, then it’s the third right and the fourth left after that. Oh, and then another shallow left before you get to the Lab at the end of the corridor. We can get there in five minutes if we run.”

“Then what are we doing just standing here?” Steve snapped, before shoving Mark again. He got the message and began to move down the corridor cautiously, poking his head around the first corner they came across. Steve rolled his eyes and shoved him forward again. “There’s no one th-“

-And that, of course, was when the sirens went off.

 He and Mark both jumped a mile in the air, Mark stumbling back into Steve’s space with frantic fear as the LED lights plunged to a dark red and the warning bell rose ominously in volume through the concrete prison. As Steve twisted and looked to Mark, he saw the man’s face turn pallid and grey. “Oh shit.”

“What? What’s happened?”

“The alarm,” Mark whispered, looking frantically around him, “they sounded the alarm. There must have been an emergency release away from the watchtowers. This…. The whole sector’s about to go into lockdown, we have to get out-“

“Absolutely not,” Steve told him incredulously, “are you crazy? We haven’t got Tony.”

“It’s too late for Tony!” Mark yelled, throwing out his hands as he stumbled back, “the door’s will be coming down in less than five minutes and after that they’re triggering the explosives and turning this part of the compound to rubble and dust! If we stay here, we’re dead!”

“We can get to him!” Steve said, his voice frantic and raging, “we _will_ get to him, Mark, this isn’t an option- you brought him here, now you help me bring him back.”

Mark shook his head rapidly, stumbling back. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Steve snarled and jerked forward, fully intending to grab him and force him to help if he had to- but Mark was surprisingly fast, and he evaded Steve’s swipe and then rolled further back, his hand reaching sideways to the-

“No!” Steve roared, but it was too late. Mark pulled the emergency switch on the door directly behind him and then threw himself backward just as the seal came down after him, putting a solid sheet of unyielding metal between Steve and the bastard. The last thing he saw was Mark’s apologetically twisted face, tears glistening in his eyes as he turned tail and abandoned the person he supposedly vowed to care for.

 If Steve had wanted to, he could have broken it down and hunted that son of a bitch right back down again. But he really didn’t have time.

He could remember the passage on his own anyway: Three lefts, take the second right, straight down for a minute then a shallow left, then it was the third right and the fourth left after that. Ends with another shallow left before getting to the Lab at the end of the corridor. Easy enough, right?  And now the alarm had been pulled anyway, breaking down doors didn’t exactly matter.

With one last hateful look in the direction of Mark, Steve turned on his heel and set off running through the glowing red corridors, faster and faster with each long step he took. He saw HYDRA agents and scientists alike all doing the same thing, abandoning their posts and running for their lives before the place blew and buried them and their knowledge forever. None of them cared for Captain America as he sprinted in the opposite direction. All they cared about was themselves.

Three lefts. Steve veered sharply, feet bouncing off the walls as he careered down the halls at a pace faster than a car. Mark said they could reach it in five minutes. Steve was going to get there before one. He gritted his teeth and barged past a scurrying agent, sending them hurtling to the floor. He didn’t care. It didn’t matter.

Tony. He had to get to Tony.

Take the second right. Steve hoisted his shield into his arm and shielded the bullets that were sprayed at him by some brave soldier apparently still loyal to the job, even through the prospect of imminent death. Steve didn’t slow down his pace- he knocked his shield right into the guy’s face, for that matter- and then continued running as if nothing had happened. Soon enough, he came to a fork in the corridor and took the shallow left, feeling his heart begin to throb in time with each whine of the siren. He didn’t have much time.

The corridors felt endless, stretching out in front of him for infinity as he sprinted desperately through them, taking the appropriate twists and turns when necessary. It all looked the same- designed to confuse anyone who was not totally familiar with the layout. Steve knew where he was going, but could already feel the intrinsic panic begin to set in. The place was a maze- how was he supposed to get Tony out of here before it all blew to hell? Even carrying Tony, it would be unlikely that they’d make it out in time. Steve’s internal clock told him that they had roughly three more minutes left until the place collapsed- and that was still only a very vague time frame based on Mark’s words. For all he knew, it could all come down in half that time, before Steve had even managed to find Tony at all.

He swallowed in fear and then rammed his shoulder into another metal door as hard as he could, crumpling the hinges and allowing him access to the rest of the corridor. Don’t think about it. Don’t think about being buried alive again. It’s not important. You just have to find him.

The seconds ticked by like individual agonies, and Steve never stopped moving throughout each one of them. His heart thrummed like an engine, his ears rung out with the reverberating whine of alarms, and Steve turned to the third right, scrambled to the fourth left. Two minutes. One minute and 53 seconds. Shallow left. One minute and 42 seconds. 40, 39, 38, 37-

In front of him, at the far end of the corridor. Lab 485. Door cracked open, ajar. The men inside must have evacuated already.

Steve’s breath hitched and he put on another surge of pace, narrowly resisting the urge to yell out Tony’s name. He wanted to keep the element of surprise if there was still anyone else in the room. Curling a hand around the rim of the door, he yanked it open and then burst through, his shield up and ready to fight. But nothing attacked him, and he felt no impact. The room was empty.

Except for the man on his knees in the middle of the room, looking at Steve through a bloody eye with mild surprise on his Goddamn beautiful face. _“Steve?”_

Steve froze for a fraction of a second before lurching forward. Tony was separated from him by a wall of metal bars like a jail cell, but there was an observation room to the left of him which led out back into the  lab. Steve pushed through the door, glancing briefly at all the information and brain-scans on the screens in front of him before exiting as the little chamber as fast as he’d come in, stepping out into the other side of the room where Tony was being kept. He stumbled uncoordinatedly, dropping his shield at his feet as he let his knees buckle and hit the stone floor roughly in front of the other man. “Tony,” he breathed in shuddering relief, hands going softly up to Tony’s jaw and gently pushing his face up, checking him over, “Tony, Tony, thank God- you’re okay, you’re okay, I’ve got you now-“

“The serum is still pretty much a mystery to us, even though SHIELD have done rigorous testing to try and work it out there’s still so much that we don’t know and probably won’t ever know about it,” Tony blurted rapidly, his words slurred and eyes wide, “but since working with him I’ve discovered a few things- mainly that the serum-infused blood of Captain America is highly flexible and can be used to heal injuries more quickly in injured patients. We tried it on Clint one time, because he and Cap shared the same blood type, and the difference was minute enough that none of the other SHIELD doctors noticed and I made sure to keep it under wraps, but the blood transfusion also helped to stabilize a few other injuries of Barton’s that otherwise would have taken way longer to heal on their own.”

Steve looked at him in confusion, beginning to try and wrench the manacles off Tony’s hands. He had no idea why Tony was talking about that to him, but it wasn’t his main concern. His main concern was getting them both out.

“The serum can also be quite volatile when introduced to certain foreign factors,” Tony continued breathlessly, all his words coming out in an almost unstoppable string. Steve realised with a lurch that this must have been all the information Tony had been forcing down, away from the HYDRA scientists, and now they were gone he was getting rid of it all and scratching the mental itch that the drugs must have been placing on him. “A battle against a certain breed of aliens with pheromones we hadn’t been exposed to before left Steve almost completely paralysed for several hours while the serum put every single effort into counteracting the symptoms. It’s a very rare occurrence but sometimes, in an instance like that, the serum can actually work too well and overwhelm the rest of the body in its attempts to heal its subject. Steve recovered with no problems but I memorised the data from the reports before destroying the paper it was written on, and I could still write down every word from memory.”

Steve gritted his teeth and yanked, pulling the metal bar off the ground completely and letting Tony loose. They had just a little over a minute now. That wasn’t enough time to get them out.

“I love you,” Tony blurted, and that- well, _that_ made Steve pause. Obviously Tony was really getting everything out, then. “I’ve always loved you, Steve, from the moment I met you, I never once stopped. You’re not a selfish bastard, I never meant that, you’re kind and generous and you put everyone above yourself and when I think about you all I want to do is be with you in every way known to man, and I learned a long time ago to just ignore it because I just thought it was an impossible wish, if I’d have known that date you took me on was a real date I never would have done what I did- God, you think I’d react like that if _you_ asked me out? You think I’d keep even a _modicum_ of calm? Steve, I… I would never even have glanced at anyone else for the entire night, never mind go home with someone who wasn’t you. When you told me that I thought my fucking heart was going to shatter, I couldn’t believe I’d-“

“Tony,” Steve cut him off, looking around and placing his hands on Tony’s shoulders, but the other man didn’t even acknowledge him- just continued, like he couldn’t physically stop all the truths from coming out now. Which was probably correct, considering the amount of drugs he was pumped full of.

“I tried to tell myself I wanted Mark,” Tony looked up at him miserably, blood all over his face, hair stuck to his skull and damp with sweat, “he was wonderful and kind, and I connected really well with him through our first conversation. I thought he would be perfect to try and help me get over you. Thought it would work. And… and I _tried so hard_ to pretend that it wasn’t you I was imagining when he kissed me, when he held me, but I was fucking kidding myself, Steve. It’s you. It’s… there’s never been a question about it, not for me. My heart fucking belonged to you before we even met, and it’s not stopped being yours since.” The words hit Steve like a solid wall, sending his heart spinning like a merry-go-fucking-round in his chest, and God, it was _so_ not the time for this, but they were probably going to die anyway because there was no way in hell they’d make it out in time, so really, who the fuck cared any more? “And I can’t- I ruined it, and I can’t believe that I did, but it turns out you wanted me back all this time and I just sat there and hurt you for months, throwing myself into the relationship I had with Mark because I wanted to try and move on with my life, and then I fucking kissed you and I couldn’t even _look_ at Mark after that without thinking about you, about your mouth and how it had tasted and I—I don’t—I can’t-“

Steve curled his hand around Tony’s stubbled jaw and leaned in, kissing him gently. Tony’s mouth stopped moving, finally- and like a dam had burst inside him and all the information was finally out from where it had been locked in his head, Tony slumped forward bonelessly, exhausted. Steve, of course, caught him; his big hands curling around Tony’s slim waist, keeping him steady and holding him close.

“it’s okay,” Steve mumbled into his forehead, “it’s okay, I understand. I’m just… I’m so glad you’re okay, I’m sorry, I should never have left-“

“-I should never have _let you_ go in the first place,” Tony whispered, scrabbling manically for a grip against Steve’s arms, “I’m sorry, Steve, I love you, I do, I promise, I’m sorry. For everything. Please don’t leave me again. Please. I don’t think I could bear watching you leave again.”

Steve swallowed through a dry throat. They probably didn’t even have a full minute now. “I’m not leaving,” he vowed quietly, before pulling away a little to look Tony over. “Are you injured?”

Tony winced. “Head hurts,” he said softly, “they tried to make me… but I didn’t, it’s fine, I didn’t. But now I don’t- I feel funny. Bad.”

That didn’t sound positive. Steve bit his lip and stroked his hand across Tony’s face, trailing it back through his hair and feeling for lumps. Concussion, at this point, was looking to be the more optimistic option. But there were none- all the pain was, unfortunately, internal.

“What’s with the alarm,” Tony asked him, words jumbling together almost incoherently as he leaned into the warmth of Steve’s shoulder.

“That’s just letting us know that the building is about to collapse in on itself,” Steve explained, and Tony sighed.

“Great.”

“Yeah. But don’t worry, I’ve got a plan.”

Tony hummed. He seemed to be getting more and more out of it by the second. “’Kay.”

Steve pressed his lips together in thought for a moment, before turning his head and looking across the room. Tony was trusting him to save them now, and Steve didn’t intend to let him down. He’d done that enough already.

 A second later he curled his hands around Tony’s body and then lifted, carrying him gently over one of the supporting steel beams that lined the left-hand-side of the wall. “Sit tight,” he murmured as he straightened his back and then marched over to the other side of the room where a row of metal desks lined up, covered in different bits of equipment. Steve grabbed it and then started tugging easily, the scraping noise as the metal legs screeched over stone was piercing both their eardrums and making Tony wince in pain, hands going over his ears. It only lasted a few moments, however, until Steve had lined it up so that Tony was sitting under the gap in the center of the heavy-set desk. At a squeeze, Steve could probably fit in there too- but Tony took first priority. Once that was done, he turned back to the other side of the room once more, hands outstretched and reaching for the cell-bars that cut off part of the room from the other. They weren’t reinforced with something super-soldier-proof. Steve could get them off easily enough.

He started yanking the edges, pulling each rut from out of the wall. It was a painful process, and he hissed quietly to himself as the metal cut into his hands, but didn’t let up. Eventually, it became dislodged enough to be pulled out in one hefting motion, and Steve pursed his lips with exertion as he dragged it back over to Tony too. The metal itself wasn’t indestructible, but he hoped that the weight of the rubble being spread out over a large surface area such as that would help to stop them getting… y’know. Crushed.

Steve could hear a vibration start up very faintly under his feet, and wondered whether this was all fruitless. If the explosives were powerful enough, that would kill them anyway. He was running off the assumption that it was only rigged to destroy the foundations that held up the building, and not just completely incinerate everything inside it as well. That just seemed like a waste of resources.

Then again, HYDRA _were_ known for being stupid.

He stacked the cell bars diagonally, resting it against the steel beam and then pushing it into the concrete a little so it’d hold. Then, with nothing more he could do, he crouched back down and shuffled into the gap under the desk next to Tony, pulling his shield in with him and then holding it over their heads as they waited. Tony watched him, his eyes a little spaced-out and glassy. But he was smiling. That was good, at the very least.

“I do like candles, by the way,” Tony told him quietly, head lolling forward and resting lightly against Steve’s shoulder. When Steve frowned in confusion, Tony explained: “you said… you said I probably would have though it was corny. To have candles on a date. But I wouldn’t. I would’ve loved it.” Tony sighed. “I would have loved anything you did.”

Steve swallowed, opening his mouth to speak. But in that second, there was an ominously enveloping rumbling noise and the world around them started to shake. Steve gripped his shield tighter and leaned in, curling his body protectively around Tony. “I’ll remember that for later,” he said lightly, flinching when suddenly there was a distant roaring sound and the foundations around them began to judder violently. Steve had the good sense to push his shield down in front of them, absorbing the shockwave that came flying through the area a second later. It was powerful- incredibly so, and Steve gasped in pain as it jarred his shoulder and sent his elbow cracking painfully against the wall behind them.

And then they both heard the sounds of crumbling, groaning, falling.

Steve shut his eyes and braced, shield going back up to cover their heads. Tony was half-unconscious as it was, which was good, because it meant he didn’t argue when Steve carefully repositioned them so that he was pretty much directly on top of the other man, hopefully offering the best protection he could get.

The noise was deafening- like the sky itself was falling from above them. Steve heard the scraping noises, watched as the room around them completely caved in in a cloud of dust and noise and broken concrete. The flimsy desk wouldn’t hold out against this, surely. Too much force.

He felt Tony take his hand, shaking and exhausted- and Steve held on tight, squeezing gently and squinting through the storm of rubble. “I’ve got you,” he promised, throat scratching tightly, “we’re gonna be okay.”

Tony nodded and shut his eyes. “I believe you,” he murmured- and then his hand loosened against Steve’s own and his body went limp as he quietly fainted in Steve’s arms. He was sick- he needed to get medical help, and he needed it fast, but there was no way they were getting it when they were stuck in here. Steve growled to himself, tugging Tony in and cradling the back of his head with a hand as he waited for the inevitable block of ceiling to come and crash through his rudimentary defences, to end any chance in hell they had of digging their way out here. The falling never seemed to end. A minute. Two. Things still kept falling.

Steve leaned his head forward until it was resting against warm skin, kept his hand wrapped tight around Tony’s own, and waited.

 

 

 

 

_

 

 

 

 

Surprisingly, they didn’t die.

 

Steve could admit- not really what he’d been expecting. But it seemed that when Mark had run from the building, he’d run straight into Thor, and his escape plan had been quite thoroughly ruined before it could even begin. Thor had demanded to know where Steve was, and once they’d found out what was happening, the team had regrouped and called for reinforcements. That, at least, is the story that Thor had told him once they’d actually managed to get out. For Steve, it just been an hour of waiting, holding Tony in his arms and wondering at what point the fragile desk was going to cave in and crush them with twenty tonnes of stone and metal.

Eventually, though, the faint sound of Hulk’s roar had filtered in through the piles of rubble, and Steve hadn’t believed it was even real at first- but the second time he’d heard it, he couldn’t help but laugh in exhaustion and relief. Realising you actually live to see the next day was always a relieving conclusion to come to.

They’d been pulled out in two hours. Steve had carried Tony’s unresponsive body out of what was left of the building, and then had to be rather sternly ordered to let go of him, so that Thor could fly him over to the quinjet so he could be put into medical.

Since then, it had mostly just been Steve sitting quietly at Tony’s bedside as he moved from Quinjet to hospital, and waiting for the other man to wake up.  The doctors said there were no signs of brain damage, which had been like a physical weight slipping off Steve’s shoulders, and aside from a fractured rib and black eye, he hadn’t even been roughed up that much. It was a miracle, but both of them had come out of that compound with no serious injuries.

They had a lot of things that they needed to talk about, when Tony did come back to consciousness. Someone had to tell Tony about Mark, and what he’d done. That was probably going to be a mess, and Tony would undoubtedly be upset by that. Heartbroken, even. He’d been with the guy for months, after all. They’d wanted to move in together.

Steve swallowed and looked away. Yeah. Things. They needed… they needed to talk about a lot of stuff. Like what Tony had told him. What he’d said about Mark. Whether it was true. All of it, really.

But for now, Steve would sit here and wait.

The rest of the team came and went as the evening turned to night, all of them taking different shifts in keeping Steve and Tony company. They were still trying to find the ringleader to all this business and take him down for good, so things were just as busy as ever. At least, they were for the rest of the team. It seemed they’d all made a unanimous decision to leave Steve at his bedside vigil and try not to disturb him, because he didn’t get called out once. He was grateful for that. It was irrational, but he didn’t want to leave Tony. Not again.

The heart-monitor guided Steve’s way through the night as he bent over and rested his elbows on his knees, turning over the thought of taking Tony’s hand into his own and holding it tight. He still wasn’t sure whether Tony would appreciate that, though. Everything was so muddled in his head. What did Tony want from him? He’d said he was happy with Mark- and then he’d broken up with Mark, and then Steve had kissed him, but Tony had been pretty out of it, it was too hard to say if that was what he truly wanted. God, Steve just had no idea.

“He was a mess after he found out you’d left, you know,” Clint told him at about five minutes to midnight, perching on one of the armrests next to Steve, “moreso than when he left Mark, anyway. You should’ve seen him, Steve. Goddamn. I know- I know something happened between you two when he went over to talk, but I just think you should know that like, whatever he might have told you- the fact is that you leaving broke his heart.”

“I know,” Steve said softly, straightening out Tony’s bedsheets absently. His voice still hurt- he’d inhaled a lost of dust from the building. “I know it did.”

Clint was quiet for another moment, before he poked Steve’s arm. “So does this mean you’re coming back then?” He asked, looking somewhat hopefully over at him.

Steve sighed, glancing back to Tony. Then he shrugged, and Clint’s face fell. “I don’t know,” he murmured, “it’s about what Tony wants.“

“Oh come on, as if that isn’t _exactly_ what Tony wants-“

“I ruined his relationship, Clint,” he said mutely, “I kissed him when I should never have kissed him, and Tony broke up with Mark because of it.”

“Mark was fucking _HYDRA_ , Steve,” Clint told him incredulously, “I really don’t think that matters now.”

Steve just sighed, leaning forward. He wanted to hold Tony’s hand, feel the steady beat of his pulse. “It’s not that simple.”

 Behind him, he could sense the roll of Clint’s eyes that went with his exasperated sigh. “Did he kiss you back?” He asked shortly, and the question made Steve pause.

He opened his mouth, shut it, and then opened it again. He remembered the short kiss he’d offered Tony at first- how Tony had moved in before Steve could pull away and dragged him in for an altogether far less innocent kiss that had left both of them reeling. That hadn’t just been Steve.

“Yes,” he murmured, hand curling into a fist, “yes, I guess he did.”

Clint moved, the fabric of his jacket crackling as he rested his hand down against Steve’s shoulder. “Then maybe it really _is_ that simple,” he said gently, and when Steve looked up at him, Clint was looking down at the hospital bed, where Steve’s pinkie finger just about brushed against Tony’s own. He hadn’t even realised he’d been moving it closer. “Just don’t run away this time, yeah? And make sure he doesn’t either.”

Steve swallowed, suddenly feeling very shaky as he turned his head away from Clint’s knowing gaze and back to Tony, face still slack and blank as he slept. He nodded jerkily, rubbing a hand quickly over his face. “Yeah,” he choked, “yeah, no running this time.”

Clint patted his shoulder again. “Good. And hey- looks like he’s waking up right now, actually. No time like the present, eh Cap?”

Steve’s eyes widened as he looked sharply at Tony’s face and saw the man’s eyelashes begin to flutter minutely, before he sighed and then shuffled just a little. By the time Steve looked back to Clint, the man had already quietly slipped out of the room. Steve swallowed down the urge to follow him and instead stood his ground, determined to sit here until he and Tony had worked things out. Until they’d come to some sort of conclusion, be it a good one or a bad. Steve just wanted to know.

He waited patiently for Tony to come around, which took a good half a minute. Eventually, however, he opened his eyes properly, looking around the room with a sort of hazy confusion. His gaze eventually found Steve, and their eyes locked.

“Hey, Tony,” Steve said with a small smile, “so, uh- turns out we survived.”

In response, Tony grunted and then winced, suddenly feeling the pain in various parts of his body. “Yeah, looks like it,” he muttered, before stilling, “uh- did… did everything that I remember happening happen, or was that just the very large amount of mind-altering drugs I remember them dosing me with?”

Steve bit his lip. “Yeah,” he said, “I mean, what happened in your version of events?”

Tony looked at him for a minute, wary. “What happened in _your_ version of events?” He asked warily, “you go first.”

It seemed neither of them wanted to admit vulnerability first, for fear of what would happen when one of them did. Steve didn’t want to say it. What if Tony was horrified by it? What if he hadn’t meant any of it? Hadn’t wanted to kiss Steve at all? What if this was only going to make things worse?

Steve bit down on the urge to repeat his question again. That would only start a childish back and forth that would probably never end, considering the amount of stubbornness they both shared. He just needed to be brave. Needed to stop waiting around and hoping things would just work themselves out. From experience, he knew that was definitely not what happened in reality. In reality, you only got to kiss the girl of your dreams a few hours before losing her forever. You got to watch the man you love fall into someone else’s arms because you’d spent so long trying to find the perfect moment that when you eventually did, it was already too late.

Well. Steve was done waiting for things.

“You told me you loved me,” he said, looking Tony straight in the eye, “that you couldn’t stop thinking about what it felt like to kiss me. That you were sorry you messed everything up. I think the truth-serum stuff they’d filled you up with was making you just sort’a… blurt every old thing out, because you talked about the super soldier serum too, a little before all that. Then I—uh—I kissed you, and I told you I was sorry for leaving you.” Steve stopped, and then gestured around him. “Then the whole place collapsed and you fainted and we ended up here. So. Yeah. Pretty much it.”

Tony was silent in front of him, and Steve had run out of things to say as well. It felt like the room was full of water, crushing him at every angle. He didn’t want this to go wrong. He couldn’t afford for this to go wrong.

“Tell me what you’re thinking,” Steve murmured imploringly, “please.”

Tony licked his lips and then took in a small breath. “I’m thinking,” he began, “that I need a fucking drink.”

_“Tony.”_

“What? It’s true. S’been a long fucking week. First I cheat on my partner of like, half a year with you, then said partner turns out to be HYDRA all along and sells me out to them after I break it off with him. Which, _ouch_ , by the way.” Tony laughs humourlessly; that nervous laugh that he always does when things really aren’t funny and he’s really very, very far away from being calm and happy. “Then I get tortured by some drug that really messed with my fucking head- do you know what it feels like to have to bite down on your tongue hard enough that it bleeds, just so you won’t spill every last one of your secrets to someone who you _know_ will use it to hurt people? It’s not fun.” Tony’s hands curled tightly around the sheets of his bed, and Steve watched as his heart monitor began to increase as he got more wound up- and fuck, he’d only just come back into consciousness and he was already stressed out, _why was Steve always getting this so wrong-_

He didn’t even really think about it, in the end. He just put his hand over Tony’s and squeezed softly- an automatic response to Tony’s stress. “Hey,” he murmured, “hey, listen- it’s gonna be okay.”

Tony looked down at their hands for a second, and Steve didn’t let go. Instead, he got to watch as slowly, Tony’s hands relaxed against the bedsheets, melting into Steve’s touch as if he couldn’t even help himself. Tony’s head turned slowly on the pillows, looking up at Steve through his purple-black eye. “Everything is so messed up,” he whispered anxiously, “I messed everything up so bad, I… I don’t—I’m just so fucking stupid, Steve, I didn’t mean to… and Mark was fucking HYDRA, Jesus, I put you all in danger, and I’m sorry, I’m just… I’m sorry. For everything. For hurting you.”

“Tony, you don’t need to apologise,” Steve said with a sigh, “you didn’t know. I never told you. I was a coward. And hey- I hurt you too.” He looked down guiltily. “I shouldn’t have walked away. I thought—God, Tony, I _knew_ Mark was HYDRA, I’d seen his face on a file months back, and I didn’t do anything because I was so fucking caught up in my own head that I just assumed I was seeing shit. You could have _died_. I left you with him and then wandered off to Washington, and I never even fucking considered-“

“-Stop talking, Steve,” Tony cut in firmly, turning his hand against the bed and then nervously linking their fingers together. Steve obediently shut his mouth with a small clack, looking at Tony and feeling his heart pound like a drum in his own ears.

Tony’s next laugh was beautiful, because it was real.

“We really fucked this up, huh?” He said with a small cough. “God, Steve. I don’t know where to begin. I… This doesn’t even feel like it’s happening. I got so used to loving you in isolation I’m not actually sure I’d know how to accept anything from you in return.”

“Would you like to try?” Steve blurted, his voice small as he shifted up off his chair, slipped onto the bedside next to Tony instead, “I know it’s bad timing, what with the whole… Mark thing. But we can wait, if that’s what you need. I don’t mind.”

Tony licked his lips nervously, but he quirked an eyebrow in Steve’s direction. “Well I do,” he said, “I’ve waited half my life to go on a date with you. And then—God, I still can’t believe that I finally got what I’d wanted and I fucked it up so fucking terribly, Steve, I can’t actually tell you how sorry I am-“

“I should have made it clearer,” Steve shook his head and leaned forward, suddenly feeling that dangerous flutter of hope build in his chest like a flame exposed to oxygen, “I should have said ‘date’ somewhere in there, you know, it wasn’t your fault.”

“If I’d asked you on a date and then you’d spent the whole night flirting with someone else before heading off to fuck them, I don’t even know how I would have dealt with that. Probably ruined that poor person’s life. I’m… I’m just so sorry, Steve. That must have been fucking awful for you.” Tony looked down guiltily and Steve opened his mouth to respond, however suddenly Tony’s face twisted entirely, turning into the look he got when he’d come up with a brilliant idea. “Hey, let’s just- let’s replay that night,” Tony said, excitement filtering into his throaty voice, “start over from the beginning. You ask me out, then you can initiate your whole plan, everything all the same. And this time I won’t fuck it up. This time, Steve, I swear, there will be no one else on my mind but you.”

Steve blinked, and then felt the hotness of flushed embarrassment creep up his cheeks. “No, that’s- look, Tony, it was stupid anyway, okay, it was… cheesy and dumb, you wouldn’t have liked it-“

Tony sat up indignantly on his bed, wincing as it tugged on his fragile ribs. Steve just groaned in exasperation and tried to push him back down, but Tony grabbed onto his arms and held tight, looking up at Steve with his most earnest expression. Almost nervously, he leaned up and touched a light kiss to Steve’s mouth, more an affirmation than anything. It effectively managed to drain all other words from Steve’s mouth, however. He wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to get used to Tony kissing him outside of his dreams.

“Steve, I promise I am going to love it,” Tony murmured honestly, “please. You put in all that effort for me. Let me appreciate it. I didn’t get the chance last time.”

Steve looked down at him, realising that he’d drifted further and further into Tony’s space as their conversation had gone on. He could feel Tony’s words brush against his face.  It was hard to believe this was even happening- not after so long being hurt, repeatedly, constantly, by the belief that it would _never_ happen.

“If that’s what you want,” he croaked, “then that’s what we’ll do.”

Tony beamed in happiness- such a refreshing and gorgeous look on him that Steve couldn’t help but smile back. He felt like a hundred tonnes of weight had just fallen off his shoulders- like he could breathe again. Tony was here and he was holding Steve’s hand, and tonight Steve would be able to go home to his proper bed and his proper room, see his friends, be whole again. It was an invigorating thought. And it made Steve happier than he’d ever thought he could be. There was a time, before Tony, before The Avengers, when getting up and starting again would have been as easy as blinking. It had taken a while to come to terms with the new century, with the knowledge that everything he’d known and loved was long gone. But it had been a while since he’d thought that way. Now there were new things to know and love. New homes to make and friendships to forge. Steve didn’t want to be anywhere other than where he was, right now, in this century.

He raised a thumb and brushed it over Tony’s cheekbone gently, mindful of the delicate skin that was still healing from various cuts and scrapes. “I love you,” he murmured.

Tony’s eyes slid shut and he leaned into Steve’s touch. He must still have been exhausted, really- just coming down from all those drugs was going to be completely draining and probably wildly unpleasant. But for now, at least, he seemed content. “I love you too,” he responded easily, before huffing, “God, I can’t believe that you just told me you loved me and I said it back. And there wasn’t any crying or near-death experience. We really are doing this communication thing well, aren’t we?”

Steve chuckled in fond exasperation and wrapped his arm gently around Tony’s waist, head finding the perfect place in the crook of Tony’s neck. “Just gotta remember to keep it up now.”

“Yeah, well, good luck with that,” Tony said, laughter turning a little more nervous as he ran a finger up and down Steve’s spine, “I am- I’m not great with that. Communication. In fact, I’m not really great at a lot of relationship things, for that matter. You are going to get so fucking sick of me.”

His voice was nonchalant and joking, but Steve didn’t even have to look in his eyes to know that Tony was far from casual just then. Tony always did that- tried to warn people about his less favourable traits, as if it was his duty to fend people off and stop them being hurt by him. It made Steve ache.

“Tony?” he murmured into the other man’s neck, resisting the urge to squeeze tighter around his waist. Bad ribs and all that.

“Yeah?”

“Shut up, please.”

Tony spluttered quietly for a second, before just sighing and then muttering a few more unintelligible words. Steve chose to ignore them in favour of carding his hand through Tony’s curls and lifting his head a little, brushing his nose across Tony’s jawline. “I’ve missed you,” he said quietly, “all that time that I was… I missed you through all of it.”

Tony titled his head, angled so Steve’s mouth was closer to his. They kissed gently, lazily, eyes closed and time stretching out in front of them like an endless haze. Steve couldn’t think of another thing in the world that mattered as much as this.

“A part of me wants to tell you that you could have just stayed- but then I try and think of it with myself in your shoes, and I’m just surprised you even lasted that long. It would have killed me. I missed you like a lost limb when you were gone, though.” Tony looked away, over to the window. “I… I really liked Mark. Maybe even loved him, a little, it’s true. I won’t lie to you about that.” Steve paused for a moment, pulling back slightly, but Tony just pushed forward and kept them close. “But it wasn’t… it wasn’t the same. Not even remotely. It was like knowing that you could, potentially, spend a long time with this person, and know that you’d have a pleasant time with them, and die at seventy having lived a slightly-above-average life with two kids who call every holiday season and a partner who you mostly used toward the end to show that you weren’t completely alone in your old age more than anything.”

Steve frowned. “That’s… strangely specific.”

“Anyway,” Tony waved a hand absently, already jumping past that point, “I don’t feel like that with you. I haven’t ever felt that way with you. I look at you and I just- I want to have everything. I’d live more in one year with you than fifty with someone like Mark.” Tony bit his lip and looked at his hands anxiously. “You were never average. Or slightly-above-average. You were more than anything I even thought I’d be able to comprehend, let alone have. And I risked everything I had just for a chance to experience you for a day or two- especially when your visits stopped being so often. Mark got so pissed with me- date after date I cancelled as soon as you called and said you were dropping by. I didn’t even think about it. You were always just my priority. It wasn’t debateable.”

Steve wasn’t too sure what to say to that. It was… a lot. Steve had thought Tony was so caught up in Mark that he’d stopped thinking of Steve altogether, and yet here Tony was, admitting that- that Steve had still been his priority, even then.

He wasn’t sure he’d ever known anyone to care about him that much. He’d always just assumed he hadn’t been that important.

Steve blinked, realising very suddenly that he was disastrously close to tears. That would be fucking mortifying- the last thing they needed right now was him getting all over-emotional, especially when things were fragile enough as it was.

He coughed and looked away. “You… You should probably lie back down. Rest and stuff. Like you said, you’ve had a very long week. I don’t want to be responsible for you getting even more injured.”

“Well, if it’s you doing the injuring, then I don’t really mind,” Tony said with a wink, grinning tiredly when Steve just blushed, “but fine. I am still kinda wiped. Emotions make me sleepy.”

Steve eased him gently back down, mindful of his sore ribs as he manoeuvred him back into a lying position. He sat up, beginning to slip off the bed once more, but Tony stuck out a hand and held him tight, keeping him locked in place. When Steve turned back to look at him, Tony was watching him hopefully.

“Stay?” He asked simply.

Steve was really going to have to learn how to say no to Tony one day.

One day was not now, though, so Steve gladly let Tony pull him back in, tucking himself delicately into Tony’s side as the other man turned his head so that it was leaning lightly against Steve’s shoulder. For the first time in what must have been months, Tony looked… content. Happy. Which was sort of ironic, considering he was lying on a hospital bed having just been held and tortured by HYDRA- but that was just how their lives went, Steve supposed. Dysfunctional on a good day.

They were here now, though. And things were starting to look up for once, which was… not what Steve had expected, really. Three days ago he’d been certain that Tony was walking out of his life for good, and now- now they were here.

Steve bit down on a smile and ran his fingers softly over the back of Tony’s palm. The man already looked like he was drifting off into sleep again- and until he woke up, Steve was happy to wait here with him.

 

Okay, so maybe Clint had been right. Maybe it really _could_ be this simple.

 

 

 

 

_

 

 

 

 

It took a grand total of two days for Tony to decide he was fine and fit to leave the hospital.

Steve tried to get him to listen to the Doctors and stay a little longer, but of course, Tony wasn’t having any of it.

“My only real injury is a fractured rib, and I can look after that at home!” Was Tony’s argument as he sat pouting on his bed with his arms folded over his chest.

“You were exposed to mind altering drugs, Tony!”

“Well believe me, it’s not the first time, and I didn’t need to stay in hospital for three days after _those_ trips, let me tell you.”

Any arguments fell on deaf ears, and eventually Steve had to concede and just agree with the Doctors to keep an eye on him and make sure to bring him back to the hospital if ever there were any signs of complications. After that, Tony pretty much ran out of the doors without looking back- it was only Natasha reminding him that he had his ass hanging out of the hospital gown that Tony realised he was probably going to have to change back into his own clothes first.

“So,” she said as they both slid into the large car that was waiting for them to take them all home, “You and Tony seem happier.”

He looked across at her and then smiled bashfully. “Yeah, uh- we talked. About stuff,” he explained quietly, looking out of the window where Thor and Bruce were both guiding Tony down the hospital steps, much to the other man’s anger and snapped _‘I’m FINE, guys!’_

“Stuff,” she repeated with a small, knowing nod, “right. You come to any interesting conclusions from that ‘stuff’?”

Again, he smiled. “Maybe. We, uh- Tony wants to go on a date. Because he- uh… well, he said he was in love with me too. So. There’s that, I guess.”

She beamed at him, and then pulled him in for a quick hug as Bruce opened the door for Tony and let the other man fall into the car with them. Natasha let Steve go in favour of reaching across him and hugging Tony as well, and then sat back in her seat with a somewhat triumphant expression on her face. “It took you both long enough,” she said to them with a shake of her head, before adding, “don’t fuck in the car.”

“We’re not gonna fuck in the car,” Steve said, just as Tony muttered “you can’t stop us fucking in the car if we wanna fuck in the car, Romanov.”

Steve shot him a look and then rolled his eyes, trying to make sure he didn’t blush too hard. From the look on both Tony and Natasha’s faces, however, he didn’t do too well.  “So- what’s the plan for today then?” He asked.

At his side, he heard Tony sigh and tense up a little. “I was thinking about going to have a chat with Mark, actually. I’m sure he’s probably bored in whatever little cell they’ve locked him up in, and I’d like to know a few things that I’m sure he has the answers to.”

“Oh,” Steve said in surprise, “oh, okay. Are you- are you sure you wanna do that right now? I mean, you’ve only just got out of-“

“-Yeah,” Tony told him simply, “I do.”

Steve stopped, and then nodded. “Alright,” he said, “you, uh-“ he almost asked if Tony wanted someone to go with him, but stopped when he realised that would probably sound like Steve wanted to escort him or something, and that just seemed weird. So he left the last part of his sentence and then just looked out of the window, watching New York City drift by whilst a hundred different strands of thought worked their way through his head. Beside him, Tony was quiet too, obviously doing the same. However a second later Steve felt a quiet little pressure against the back of his palm as it rested against his own thigh, and looked down to see Tony’s hand settle almost nervously against his, hovering a little like he wasn’t quite sure whether to commit to the act or not.

Steve twisted his palm so it was face-up, and locked their fingers together firmly. Tony’s lip curled in relief, and he traced his thumb happily over the ridge of Steve’s wrist. He figured Natasha must have seen it, because she turned and looked out of the window with a small huff of air that sounded suspiciously like a laugh.

They remained with their hands locked together until arriving back home twenty minutes later. And, of course, as soon as Tony was back on familiar ground he was getting to work once more- the man never stopped, not even if he’d just had a near-death experience. Him, Steve and Natasha all took the elevator up to the penthouse whilst Tony talked quickly on the phone to someone from SHIELD, and by the time they’d gotten to the top floor Tony had already arranged to leave twenty minutes later in order to go to the containment centre they were keeping Mark. The tight, strained look was back on his face again, and Steve watched him in concern as he wandered over to the kitchen and then started up the coffee machine like his welcome home present.

“Ask him if he wants company to go there, please,” Steve murmured to Nat as they both watched him scurry around the kitchen.

She raised an eyebrow. “Why not you?”

He sighed, shrugging and waving a hand. “Because it’d be… _weird_ , if I asked to accompany him while he talked to Mark. I don’t want to push any boundaries here.”

Natasha hummed. “Fair,” she agreed with a nod, “I’ll ask.”

Of course, though, Tony said no, he was fine, he would be perfectly capable of doing it without help. Steve didn’t like the thought of Tony going through that alone, but he couldn’t force Tony to take up Natasha’s offer. Anyway, he could imagine that having to interrogate your recently-ex boyfriend who’d been secretly working against you throughout your whole relationship would be… sensitive, to say the least. Steve figured Tony just didn’t want to be watched while he went through that. Which was understandable. Steve wouldn’t either. Didn’t mean he felt any better about all of it, though.

Tony left the tower fifteen minutes after arriving, and the rest of the team eventually slunk back into their own quarters too, until eventually Steve was alone in the kitchen, watching the kettle bubble absently and trying not to think about Tony. Or Mark. Or about how much he wanted to slam Mark’s head through a table. Tony hadn’t said anything or let on to it yet, but Steve wasn’t an idiot- he knew this betrayal had cut deep. Another person on the list of many who’d had ulterior motives. Steve kicked himself whenever he thought about it, because he knew that he could have stopped it before it got too far. Knew he could have done something. But he hadn’t. And now Tony was hurting because of it.

He sighed and poured out the boiling water into his mug. He couldn’t change what had happened. But he could try and make it better. Try and be the person that Tony needed.

He tried to focus his attention on the newspaper at the table as he sipped on his green tea, but his mind was too full up and none of the information sank in. Eventually, he had to give up and instead headed over to the TV, where he let the mindless insanity of Adventure Time roll over him and keep his mind blessedly blank. It was a load of crap, but he could see where Clint found the appeal, and happily whiled away the next hour with his eyes on the screen, watching the cartoons play around in front of him. Thor came in and joined him at some point, hair thrown up in a messy bun and the large fluffy sweater that Bruce had purchased for him hanging off his shoulders comfortably. They both sat in easy silence; Steve watching TV, Thor on his phone playing one of those stupid games that he was addicted to. It was nice. Steve had missed it, since he’d been gone.

Eventually, about two and half hours later, Tony came back. Steve only heard him as the elevator doors slipped open, and he and Thor both turned to watch as the man stepped out, shoulders hunched and hands tucked tightly into his pockets. His eyes were red, like he’d been crying, and Steve’s heart sunk. Jesus- he knew someone should have gone with him.

Tony clocked them both when he looked up and saw them staring at him over the back of the couch, and his whole body tensed up. He sniffed and wiped his face quickly, straightening out his back. “Hey,” he said, “so that was fun.”

“Tony,“ Steve began, legs sliding off the couch to stand up and meet him- but Tony waved a hand and shook his head, not looking Steve in the eye.

“Not now,” he said, “just… not now, Steve. I need to— I got work. I’ll see you ‘round.”

And just like that, he was shucking off his jacket and then turning, heading off to the stairs where he was inevitably going to go and hide in his workshop for the next two days. Normally, Steve might have gone and followed him- tried to just offer him some company while he wallowed in his own thoughts. But now, their whole dynamic was different. Steve no longer knew his place.

He watched Tony go feeling somewhat as if this was his fault, and then sagged back into the couch with a heavy sigh.

Thor’s hand came to rest against Steve’s shoulder, and he looked over. “Give him time,” Thor said softly, “things are hard for him right now. I know you might not want to hear it, but he really cared about Mark- discovering the betrayal will have hurt him greatly.”

Steve swallowed the lump in his throat and looked back over to where Tony had been. “I know,” he murmured, “I…yeah.”

Thor said nothing, but his hand squeezed down on Steve’s shoulder before it slid off. “It’s just nice to have you home, Steve,” he said with his usual blunt honesty, “I know it wasn’t a long time in the grand scheme of things- in fact, you’ve had missions away that lasted more time than this- but it wasn’t the same. I’m just… Glad you’re here again. We all are.”

Steve smiled, inclining his head bashfully. “Thanks, Thor,” he responded, “it’s good to be home.”

They drifted back into silence once more, until Steve eventually decided to get out some of his pent-up energy on the punching bags down in the gym. He left Thor to grab his training gear, and then spent the next few hours beating into a punching bag as if his life depended on it, stopping every so often to ask JARVIS whether Tony was doing okay. But there were no emergencies, no signs of Tony doing anything blatantly dangerous or unhealthy in there, so Steve just left him to it. The doctors had said that Tony could get pretty severe headaches for the next few days or so whilst his brain reacclimatised. Although he hadn’t been kept too long in the grand scheme of things, whatever it was they’d pumped him with had been powerful stuff. Tony should never even have been able to hold out as long as he did.

Then again, Tony loved to defy all expectations.

Steve kicked the bag at full strength, feeling the impact reverberate through his shin. Sweat dripped from his nose, but he didn’t let up the barrage. God, how he wanted to get his hands on the people who’d been fronting this push for the secrets about the Serum. They’d done this. They’d put Tony through that, and they’d pushed Mark into his life, and Steve just wanted to find them and make sure they never got their hands on anything close to a Super Soldier serum for as long as they lived.

He punched the bag with a solid right hook and then felt the blow finally sink right into the bag, splitting it open and releasing the contents all over the floor. Steve watched it breathlessly for a few moments, before wiping the sweat off his face and going for the sweeping brush they kept in the corner of the room with a weary acceptance. . According to the clock, it was now 6pm. He- or someone- should probably check on Tony. Thor was right; he was probably still pretty heartbroken over it.

Was Steve being pushy? Should he give Tony more time? Jesus, the last thing he wanted to do was rush Tony into something that he didn’t think he was emotionally ready for. He’d just gotten out of a committed relationship. He might not have recovered. He might _never_ recover. Hell, maybe the whole past few days had just been… just been some sort of mistake, a bunch of pent-up emotions with nowhere else to go. So what, they’d kissed? Tony probably kissed lots of people. And there was still the fact that, although in theory Tony might be attracted to him, maybe even love him- in reality, Steve came with a hell of a lot of baggage. Inexperience, awkwardness, clumsiness, stubbornness. Mark, although an asshole, had been pretty much the opposite of that. He’d been smooth and charming and exactly Tony’s type, and-

-And Steve should really stop trying to compare himself with other people. That most definitely wasn’t going to help him feel better about all this.

He sighed, wiping a towel over his face and heading off to take a quick, cold shower. He still felt buzzed off the exercise-high, and he knew he probably wouldn’t be getting much sleep tonight anyway. Too many things in his head. Instead of staying in his room, he headed down the communal kitchen to make himself another cup of tea and maybe fill out some of new reports. Since he’d moved to DC, he’d occupied most of his time with work and so there weren’t actually that many to fill out, but it would pass some time. Maybe after, he could go and unpack some of his stuff. It’d been sent over from DC, so Steve wanted to get it back where it belonged as soon as possible.

Towelling off his hair and pulling on the first shirt he saw, Steve padded out of his room and headed for the communal area. It was empty, however- with Clint and Nat still at SHIELD, Bruce and Thor both in their quarters, and Tony in his lab- so Steve was once more left to his own thoughts as he prepared another tea- chamomile, this time. Bruce said it helped for stress.

As he was just getting comfy on one of the kitchen chairs, however, he heard with a note of surprise, the sound of bare feet on tiled floor. Steve looked up over the rim of his mug, eyes widening as he saw Tony creep up the staircase on the other side of the room, eyes going immediately to Steve. He swallowed a little nervously, but then he smiled. “Hey.”

Steve hurriedly put down his cup. “Hey yourself,” he responded, suddenly very aware that he was wearing a really stupid shirt. It had some dumb cartoon of penguins on it- Bruce had bought it for him at the zoo and it was a little too tight for him, God, he must look like an idiot.

“Sorry for dipping earlier,” Tony said lightly, pulling Steve away from his little panic spiral, “I just—there was shit to work through. And I probably wouldn’t have been the best company, you know… all morose and stuff.” He shrugged and then wandered forward, hovering nervously at the perimeter of the kitchen as if he were afraid Steve didn’t want him there or something ridiculous. “I’m okay now, though.”

“You don’t have to be,” Steve told him gently, his finger tracing the rim of his cup as he looked down at it, “you know, it’s… I know things between us are probably weird right now and I just- I just want you to know that, like, it’s okay. To want space. I get that. And I mean, you can just tell me if you’re having second thoughts about everything too, that’s fine, I mean I know I’m… I’m not, really, uh, your type and stuff, and we can just put it down to a crazy few months and move on if-“

“-hey, no what?” Tony asked with a few rapid-fire blinks, “why would I want that?”

Steve paused, looking at him with wide eyes. “I, uhhh…. Well. I’m—me,” he said with an awkward shrug, “I’m not really… not all that much outside of the big muscles and stuff, you know?” He laughed tightly, “it’s fine if you… and I mean, you just got out of a relationship too, so you might-“

“Stop talking,” Tony told him firmly, and Steve shut his mouth with a firm click, realising he’d probably just overshared there. Now Tony was going to think he was some sort of needy helpless idiot, too. Great.

Tony walked over to him quickly, and Steve watched in mild surprise as his hand lifted and then placed itself against Steve’s jaw, pushing gently so that he was looking up at Tony. The man looked concerned, his frown deep as he regarded Steve like some sort of jigsaw puzzle. Steve resisted the urge to lean into his touch, and made a conscious effort to quit holding his cup so tight. Having that shatter everywhere would not be good right now.

“I know I’m not making this easy for you,” Tony admitted softly, his voice full of guilt, “I’m sorry. I don’t- I’m not trying to hurt you or make you think all that shit, okay, which is _not_ true, by the way, you are… you’re so totally off base there, but whatever, I’ll get to that in a minute.” He swallowed a little breath and then flicked his eyes across Steve, before making a choice and then moving forward, slipping onto Steve’s lap smoothly. Steve watched him intently, feeling his heart speed up at the weight of Tony against him. The bruise on his eye was turning an ugly yellowish-green, and there were still a myriad of cuts and scrapes that lined the left side of his face, but dammit, he still managed to look perfect. Steve wanted to slip his hands all over him.

“Are you secretly working for HYDRA?” Tony murmured quietly, thumb tracing from Steve’s temple to his jaw.

Steve shook his head. “Nope.”

“You a gold digger or an up-and-coming tech conglomerate that wants to pick my brain?”

“No.”

Tony paused, biting his lip before asking, “you really love me? This isn’t just… some weird passing fantasy that’s gonna fade after a few-“

“No,” Steve told him quickly, shaking his head, “no, it really isn’t.”

Tony paused, his fingers stilling against Steve’s face. “Huh,” he huffed, before smiling gently, “then I think we’re gonna be just fine, Steve.”

He gazed up at Tony in slight disbelief, watching as the other man dipped his head and kissed him, soft and delicate. This was the fourth time, now, and Steve didn’t think the initial connection- the feeling of Tony’s mouth against his own- was ever going to stop feeling like the best thing in the world. He beamed against Tony’s mouth and curled his hands around the other man’s waist, feeling Tony do the same against Steve’s neck, fingers stroking softly through the spiky hairs at the nape of Steve’s neck.

“So when are you gonna take me on that date then, huh?” Tony asked quietly against his mouth, breaking away with heavy-lidded eyes and looking at Steve, his head cocked questioningly.

Steve laughed nervously and looked down, running a hand through his hair. “Uh, I mean- whenever you’d like, really, I’m not… we can book a table or something, maybe go catch a movie if you want, I don’t-“

“-No,” Tony said with a pout, “no, that’s not what you’d been going to do the first time. I want to see that one.”

Steve’s blush grew. “Tony, it really… it wasn’t-“

“Please,” Tony said, brow creasing as he absently tucked a few loose strands of hair behind Steve’s ear, “I couldn’t stop thinking about it, when you first told me. What it would have been like, to go home and see all that. For me. Done by you. And I don’t know why you’d think I’d think it’s stupid or corny- I’m the human embodiment of stupid and corny gestures, Steve.” Tony smiled and kissed him again, this time very lightly on the nose, of all places. “Please?” He asked.

Again- one day, Steve would learn how to say no to Tony when he asked with a face like that.

“If that’s what you want,” Steve conceded in the end, and Tony’s starbright smile was worth the potential embarrassment that was to come later.

“Alright,” Tony declared, slipping off Steve’s lap fluidly and then turning away, looking over his shoulder in order to grin, “it’s settled then. How would tomorrow at seven do for you?”

Steve mentally checked. “Yeah, that’d be. That’d be fine.”

Tony nodded, pushing his hair back off his face. “Well then, it’s settled. And hey- remember to splurge on the candles, alright?” He gave Steve one last beaming smile before turning away, a spring in his step as he wandered off in the direction of his own quarters and waved a hand behind him. Steve just watched him go, his whole body feeling tingly from the contact and about ten degrees hotter in all the spots where Tony had placed his hands. Like a brand. Like a promise.

“Alright,” he said to the empty room, licking Tony’s taste off his bottom lip, “alright, let’s do this.”

 

 

 

 

_

 

 

 

 

As Steve stood in his room, clothes strewn all over the place and his friends all crowded around him and looking him up and down analytically, he got a familiar sense of déjà vu.

“How do I look?” He asked a little nervously, smiling and twirling in a circle for them. He wasn’t wearing his army uniform tonight- he and Tony had no galas to attend, and it felt too official for a date. Instead, Natasha had told him to go simple- blue slacks, a white shirt and a blazer to match his trousers. Clint had said they should keep his hair natural, and although Natasha and Thor had argued for some styling, Steve had decided that he was just going to keep it as it was. He’d only mess it up by running his hands through it if he did anything to it anyway.

The nerves were racing through his system, exactly the same as they had been the first time he’d tried it. Maybe even moreso, this time around. He didn’t want it to go wrong again. That would be… well, awful was putting it lightly.

His friends all beamed at him, and Clint raised his thumbs approvingly. “I’d fuck you,” he said with a wiggle of his eyebrows.

Bruce slapped him over the head. “You missed your chance, Barton,” he said, looking at Steve with a smile, “you look great, Steve.”

He returned the smile and then looked down at his shoes. “Thanks, guys,” he said, before laughing awkwardly and making a face, “God, this is so stupid- why am I so scared? It’s not—it’s gonna be fine. Tony even said—I mean, this time I know that Tony wants this, and I’m still…. I’m still fucking terrified.”

“Would you like me to sit on you again?” Thor asked, “it seemed to help last time.”

“No, Thor, that was just him trying to conserve his oxygen before you choked him to death,” Natasha told him, before rolling her eyes and stepping forward. She smoothed out Steve’s already-perfect collar fondly, and then patted his chest. “Remember when Tony declared his love for you?”

Steve huffed. “Yeah.”

“And when he kissed you multiple times and said that you were the person that he wanted to be with?”

“Yeah, that too.”

She smiled, handing him the bouquet of pink peonies that Steve had picked up a few hours ago in preparation. “Then what’s there to be scared about? Go get ‘em, tiger. And don’t let him go this time, alright?”

He nodded firmly, checking his watch. 2 minutes to seven, and he didn’t want to be late. He was ‘picking Tony up’ from his room and then taking him to the kitchen, where he’d ordered Tony’s favourite steak in from Carlucci’s and set it all up exactly as he’d done before. It felt kind of stupid, but also… good. Satisfying. Like Steve was finally getting the night he’d spent all that damn time planning for.

He smiled at his friends, and then turned for the door. “I guess I’ll see you later then,” he told them, “don’t interrupt us unless someone’s about to die.”

He slipped out of the door, hearing Bruce quietly request that they didn’t have sex on any of the cooking surfaces on the way out, and he laughed nervously to himself whilst he walked down the corridor and headed to the elevator. The flowers felt heavy in his hands and he readjusted them carefully, making sure not to accidentally break the stems. He felt like his heart was going to pound its way right out of his chest.

Tony’s door loomed up ahead of him, and Steve took a long, calming breath before walking steadily forward and then lifting his hand, knocking three times. Or at least- he’d intended to knock three times. Tony had already opened the door by the time the second knock was done, leaving Steve’s hand hanging in the air awkwardly as he looked down at Tony in surprise.

“Steve!” Tony said happily, cheeks flushed red. He was dressed… well, in exactly the same suit that he had the day he and Steve had gone to the Veteran’s gala- navy blue suit, sharp white tie and his hair falling over his face in beautiful soft curls. He was even wearing the same watch.

Steve swallowed down a lump in his throat and smiled back. “Hi, Tony,” he said, his own blush creeping up his neck and around his cheeks as he thrust the flowers forward into Tony’s space, “these are for you.”

Tony looked down at them, his face glowing as he took them carefully from Steve’s hands. He wasn’t laughing yet, which was…. Yeah, definitely good. “They’re beautiful,” he murmured, staring up at Steve with a look as soft as silk on his face, “thank you. Let me go put them in a vase, and then I’ll be right with you.” He ducked back into his room, leaving the door slightly open as he hurried around in there. Steve heard the running of a faucet as he waited, and then a few seconds later Tony was back, smiling just as radiantly as before.

“Hi again,” he said.

Steve laughed. “Hi. Shall well head down then?”

“Lead the way,” Tony said, waving his hand and then linking it through Steve’s arm easily. Steve nodded and then kicked himself into gear, feeling Tony’s own racing heartbeat through their touching hands. At least Steve wasn’t the only one who was nervous, then.

They talked amicably on the way down, conversation flowing freely and easily as it always did whenever Steve was with Tony. As the elevator got closer to the communal floor, however, Steve felt the nerves start to creep back in again. What if it really was lame- too lame even for Tony to keep a straight face over? God, that’d be mortifying. Steve had done as Tony had asked an kept everything the same, but it was… was it dumb? Too much? Steve had no idea.

He licked his lips in apprehension as the doors open, and let Tony walk out first. He was too scared to watch Tony’s face, so it was better if he just followed on behind. The floor was dimly lit; a low lighting that Steve had thought would fit the aesthetic. As they walked into the dining room, Steve did a cursory glance around, looking at the tall candles in the centre of the lace-adorned table, listening to the low tones of Frank Sinatra as the sound drifted over to them. The food was sat on the hot plates, steaming and ready to be eaten. Steve had made sure to time it exactly right, so that it wouldn’t get cold before they could actually eat it. He could admit, he’d pretty much transformed the communal dining room into some dumb private function for two, and it looked… romantic. Maybe too much, now Steve was seeing it again.

In front of him, Tony was stood still in the room, not moving an inch as he stared in front of him. Steve could only see a sliver of his face, but Tony’s eyes were wide and his mouth slightly agape as he looked at the scene. Steve felt his hands roll over one another nervously. “I know it’s- it’s kinda dumb,” he said in a rush, “before- I mean, I’d been planning it for months, so I got kinda carried away, and I wasn’t gonna do that this time but then you asked, and so I—I just—”

Tony turned to him slowly. He looked like he’d seen a ghost or something, and Steve was suddenly terrified that he’d gotten this very, very wrong. “You,” Tony began, voice a little reedy until he swallowed and then tried again, “you did… all of this. For me.”

Steve nodded. “Yeah,” he admitted, “yeah, uh- I did.”

Tony stared at him blankly, before turning back to the scene set out in front of them. Steve wanted to just say screw it, they could go to a movie instead, this had been stupid anyway, it was fine, it didn’t matter-

And then he saw something shiny fall down the side of Tony’s face, and his eyes widened in panic. “Tony, are you _crying?”_

Tony blinked, looking down and then hurriedly wiping his hand across his face, “fuck,” he muttered, “fuck, I’m sorry, this is so fucking stupid, I just—Jesus, Steve, I’m such a fucking _idiot_. This… this is beautiful, it’s amazing, you gave me peonies, my favourites, and you lit a fuckton of candles and there’s _lace_ on the tables, where the fuck did you even _get_ _lace_ \- and steak from Carlucci’s and obviously, this is what you did the first time and I just walked off with someone else and I am _so so sorry,_ I can’t believe you went to all this trouble and I-“

“-hey, hey,” Steve took his arm and pulled him in, turning to face the other man with a small smile, “this was not your fault. I was too scared to say the word ‘date’ and you got confused. But does it matter now anyway? That was months ago. This is now.”

Tony looked up at him, his jaw clenched and his fists tight against his sides. “I have no idea what I managed to do to get you to fall in love with me,” he muttered, “God, Steve, I do _not_ deserve you.”

“Don’t say that,” Steve told him with a frown, his thumb stroking the corner of Tony’s mouth, “that’s not true.”

Tony looked like he wanted to argue that for a moment, but then he just shut his mouth and looked down, taking a second to re-compose himself. When he looked back up, there was a determined edge to his face.

“I am going to make this the best night of your life,” he declared with a nod, before turning on his heel and then walking over to the table. “Come on, Steve, get ready to be wooed and charmed to kingdom fucking come.”

Steve watched him with a small laugh, following his steps and then sitting in the chair opposite him. Tony’s face looked wonderful lit up by the soft yellow glow of the candles, and Steve decided that they had in fact been a good choice after all.

He lifted a champagne flute and tilted it in Tony’s direction. “Give it your best, Stark,” he said softly, far too much affection in his voice to sound even remotely confrontational.

 

Tony looked at him from across the table with a raised eyebrow, and then proceeded to do just that.

 

 

 

 

_

 

 

 

 

It was, in fact, the best night of Steve’s life. Tony had been right.

They talked like they breathed- easy and natural, about anything and everything. Tony’s laughter, his warmth and happiness, it all encouraged Steve to get braver, his hands moving from his place on the table to covering Tony’s own, his leg brushing Tony’s under the table until Tony leaned forward and stroked his foot up and down the inside of Steve’s calf in a repetitive motion that left Steve’s skin hot and tingly. The food went down amazingly, of course, and once they’d gotten through the main meal, Tony was buzzed off the champagne and Steve simply off the high of the night’s success. He watched Tony’s hands move through the air enthusiastically as he spoke of a recent debate he’d had with Pepper, his cheeks flushed pink and his dark hair all messy from where he’d pushed his hands through it. His happiness was the most beautiful look on him, and Steve could stare at him forever when he was like that.

It was just… perfect.

“Hey,” Tony said suddenly, clicking his fingers suddenly and sitting up straighter, “hey, we have like…. A billion episodes of Doctor Who that we need to catch up on, don’t we? Unless you’ve been watching them on your own, which, rude, but I mean I’ll let it slide-“

“Tony, you don’t even like Doctor Who,” Steve said with a laugh, “you told me you that you only watched it for me.”

Tony just shrugged. “I mean, yeah. But that’s why I like it. And I mean- it’s ridiculous, but I guess it’s sort of okay if you just disregard like, all of the science behind it. And the terrible acting.”

Steve sat up indignantly. “It is not terrible acting!”

“Yeah, ‘cause you’re the perfect judge of that, Mr. Cheesy USO front-man’”, Tony chuckled and popped a mint into his mouth, grinning wide at Steve as he began to sing, “ _who’s strong and brave, here to save the American waaayy-“_

“No, God, stop, Jesus,” Steve buried his head in his hands and groaned as Tony continued to sing melodically, “please do not remind me of that, come on, let’s just go and watch the stupid show.” He stood hastily from the table and tugged Tony up with him, hearing the other man laugh behind him and follow on obediently as Steve guided them around the chairs and counters, walking them into the living room. “This was my plan anyway,” he muttered as he gently pushed Tony onto the comfy leather of their couch.

Tony’s laughter trailed off as he looked up at Steve curiously, something changing in his eyes as he cocked his head. “How far ahead _did_ you plan?” He asked quietly, keeping his gaze on Steve as he sat down next to Tony.

Steve looked across at him, suddenly feeling something change in the air. Tony’s gaze had moved down to Steve’s mouth, by that point. “ I guess I planned all the way through to the end of the night,” he said with a shrug, “it got a little vague after stage 2- I mean, uh, the dinner, because of-“

Tony leaned forward and kissed him before he could finish; his hand reaching out and grabbing Steve by the collar of his shirt as he shuffled forward and quickly slid his leg over Steve’s lap, straddling him. Steve cut himself off with a quick hum, kissing back enthusiastically. Tony tasted like mints and champagne- a strange mix, but still nice.

Then Tony broke away, looking down at Steve with his hair falling into his face, his cheeks pink, mouth wet. “Continue,” he said with a wave of his hand, moving his lips to Steve’s neck instead so that he could keep talking.

Steve wasn’t altogether too sure that he could remember how to do that when Tony started to press open-mouthed kisses into his neck. He exhaled sharply, his hands clutching Tony’s thighs. “Uhhhh, I mean- I mean, I was going to suggest a movie, I guess,” he mumbled, eyes falling shut and head tilting, giving Tony a better angle to work with, “we could have… I know you wanted to watch that new Mission Impossible film, and I thought, I thought maybe- oh God-“ he broke off with a sigh as Tony sucked hard against the sensitive skin on his neck. Tony’s hands were working their way steadily down his chest, finding the hem of his shirt and then ducking under, exploring skin. It wasn’t as manic as the first time, but there was still a sense of urgency that sent a hot burst of want shooting down Steve’s spine. Tony’s touch was high voltage.

“What if I didn’t want to watch the movie,” Tony murmured in between biting kisses, his thumbs spreading across the plane of Steve’s abs, each movement like a trail of fire over his skin, “what if I wanted to do this instead?” He moved his hand down quickly, trailing it over the fabric of Steve’s quickly-tightening pants before pressing the heel of his palm down lightly against Steve’s crotch.

Light exploded behind Steve’s eyes as he choked on the air and jumped up a little in his seat, following Tony’s touch automatically. “Jesus,” he hissed, “Tony… fuck, I mean—I’d been going to wait until the third date, at that point, so I didn’t really- I didn’t, _fuck_ , plan for this.”

Tony laughed incredulously, hips moving forward tantalizingly, pressing their bodies even closer. “That’s fucking hilarious, Steve,” he said, before pausing and then moving back, looking at Steve quizzically. “Wait. Do you… are you serious?”

“Oh, fuck no,” Steve told him, shaking his head and pushing forward to kiss him again, long and hot and heavy, “no, not now. I thought- I thought if I waited, I’d show you that I wanted you for more than just sex, you know?” He pulled a face and raised his eyebrows. “But then in the end, I had to wait like, six months, so I mean- I figured I’ve done my time.”

Tony laughed, carding his hand through Steve’s hair with soft, gentle fingers. “Damn right you have,” he said, slightly breathless as his darkened eyes watched Steve’s face intently. “Hey, did you know that I love you like, a pretty insane amount? Like that’s a thing. That I do.”

Steve chuckled, taking Tony by the tie and pulling him in, mouth open as his tongue licked across Tony’s bottom lip, tasting the remains of the champagne on his mouth. Tony moaned gently, rutting forward in Steve’s arms, desperate for contact.

“I love you too,” Steve told him, “and I’m gonna be honest with you- I have no idea what I’m supposed to do after- you know- making out.” He made a face and then looked up nervously as Tony pulled back, eyeing him with curiosity.

“Virgin?” He asked, hands tracing the collar of Steve’s shirt.

When Steve nodded, however, rather than look put-out, Tony just beamed at him. “Oh, this is gonna be _so_ fun,” he said as he pushed his hands under Steve’s jacket and removed it efficiently from his shoulders, “the things I am going to teach you, Steve Rogers. _Damn_. Now I’m like- two hundred percent hornier. I didn’t even think I could _get_ hornier and yet here I am. How do you do that to me? This is amazing.”

Steve laughed in relief, gently loosening Tony’s tie. “How much of that champagne did you have?” He asked, amused.

Tony hummed. “Well, I was pretty fucking terrified, so I’d say quite a bit.” He tossed Steve’s jacket to the side and then got to work on his shirt, quickly tugging at the buttons one by one and then pushing it backward, giving him access to Steve’s skin. “Anyway- back to the subject at hand. Tell me what you’d do after the movie plan failed. After I’d kissed you, like this,” Tony leaned in and pushed his mouth up against Steve’s, hot and hard, “after I’d touched you like this,” his hand pressed down against Steve’s dick again, and God, his touch was like nothing Steve could possibly have fantasized about- this was practically nothing, but Steve already felt close to the edge. “Tell me what you’d do then.”

Steve swallowed, his hands digging into Tony’s thighs. “I’d kiss you back,” he murmured, bringing his hand up to Tony’s jaw and then pulling him in for another long, hot kiss, and he could quickly feel Tony melting into him, his whole body going pliant under Steve’s touch as his spare hand slid under Tony’s thigh and moved to his ass, squeezing, “I’d touch you like this.”

Tony shuddered, a full-body thing. “Yeah,” he encouraged, “go on.”

Steve pushed the hand on Tony’s ass forward, pulling Tony toward him and grinding their bodies together. Tony practically vibrated in delight as the friction burned through them. “And then I’d pick you up, and I’d take you back to my room, and I’d fuck you so hard that you don’t even remember your name. Don’t remember anyone’s name except mine.”

Tony couldn’t hold back the moan that time, and he gripped Steve’s arms like a lifeline as his breath shuddered. _“Jesus fucking Christ,”_ he cursed, “holy… Steve, please-“

“Please what?” Steve asked with a raised eyebrow, feeling Tony’s frustration through the next kiss they shared.

“Please don’t just sit there when you could be picking me up and following through with that wonderful plan you just spoke of,” Tony said quickly, looking straight at Steve without an ounce of fear as he continued, “I’ve waited for you my whole life. I don’t want to wait any fucking longer.”

Steve smiled. The next kiss was light, soft- didn’t really follow the pattern of the rest of them. But they’d have plenty of time later that night. And the next night. And the next. “Then let’s go, shall we?” He said softly, before standing up as if Tony’s weight on his legs was just nothing at all, taking Tony up with him, “preferably not on a table this time.”

“Ha ha,” Tony said through a grumble, “yeah, wasn’t you waking up the next morning with splinters all over your spine, was it?”

Steve kissed his cheek. “Sorry. We’ll save rough sex for more high-quality tables.”

“Agreed,” Tony nodded and then kissed him, again and again and again, covering his face with happy kisses. “I love you. Now go fuck me though that lovely expensive mattress, captain.”

 

 

 

 

_

 

 

 

 

Later that night, he turned and looked over at Tony in his now slightly-broken mattress. Tony was staring up at the ceiling with stars in his eyes, panting heavily, just starting to come down from the high of his orgasm. Steve just watched him; the way his throat moved up and down, pulling in deep breaths whilst Steve’s fingers traced over the ridges of the reactor and pushed his own rather sweaty hair from out of his face. There were marks where Steve’s teeth had scratched against Tony’s neck, bitten in like a brand.

“So,” Tony said once he’d caught his breath again, turning his head and raising an eyebrow at Steve, “how was that for the best night of your life?”

Steve burst out laughing, wrapping his arm around Tony’s waist and tugging him in, and they were both sweaty and probably needed a good shower, but it didn’t matter, not just then. Nothing mattered, really. Steve was floating on a high that he wasn’t even sure he’d ever step off.

Tony was here. With Steve. And he looked like he was sticking around.

“Definitely,” he murmured into Tony’s temple, “definitely in the top ten, at the very least-“

“-oh Ha ha, very funny,” Tony grumbled, smacking his bicep half-heartedly and then burying his head into Steve’s neck, kissing him absently. “Seriously though- are you happy? With this? With us? Everything?”

Steve paused, and then sat up a little on his elbow, looking down. He found Tony’s hand and lifted it upward, pressing the knuckles delicately against his lips.

“With you?” He said gently, watching the way Tony’s eyes shone, “always."


End file.
